Christy Hays looked as far as she could see in the main room at Madison Downs on Tuesday, April 30, to monitor how everything was going.
Hays, who is the fine arts education coordinator for Jackson-Madison County Schools, craned her neck to look around exhibits and displays with entire classes’ works of art hanging throughout the facility.
Artistic pieces ranging from sculptures made by pre-K students at Nova Early Learning Center up to detailed original drawings and paintings by students from all high schools in the county were available for the viewing and some for the possible bidding for purchase.
The events center was also full of people walking around looking at the art as well.
This event was the Jackson-Madison County Schools Fine Arts Show, which has become an annual tradition in recent years, but this was the first time for the event to be at Madison Downs.
“Up until this year, we’ve always had it at the mall, and we still did have a mostly musical event at the mall a couple weekends ago, but we decided to change it up this year,” Hays said. “Here, everything is together and anyone wanting to look at different classes or different schools, they don’t have to go walking over a larger area because it’s either here in this room [the main room at Madison Downs] or out front in the silent auction.”
That was something new this year as well.
Selected works by some of the students were not only on display but also up for bid in a silent auction.
All of that was on the front porch of Madison Downs along with a rotation of musical performances to entertain the visitors during their walk-through.
“We decided to do that for a couple reasons,” Hays said. “For one, it’s never failed that each year we’ll get a few requests from people about the possibility of purchasing a painting or drawing or sculpture.
“And those requests have always been directed to the principal to relay to the students and their families and let them decide about it.”
Any money raised in the silent auction would be split between the student and the District’s fine arts program.
“If someone wants to pay X amount for a work of art and they win the auction for it, the student gets half of that money and the other half goes into our fund to buy art supplies and other expenses we may have next school year,” Hays said. “But we’re just glad to see this many people out because most people can plan on people showing up for other events, but this proves what I’d said to administrators for years that the community will show up for the arts too.
“And they’ve done that every year that we’ve done this, more each year than the year before. And I know the students appreciate it as much as we at the district do.”
Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news
