Each year the Kearsley Park Players proudly bring a little theatrical flair to Flint’s historic Kearsley Park and to other area parks that host the popular Theatre in Our Parks Program.

Lullabies evoke special feelings of closeness with our mothers and with our children when they were very young – or perhaps images of boughs breaking when the wind blows and cradles falling helplessly out of treetops. Similar to the entertaining nursery rhymes of Mother Goose, lullabies still have a distinctive influence on the parent-child bond.

Dream, create, achieve. Not only are Valorie Horton and her son Omar Batson talented artists, they are sharing their talents with underprivileged children in the Flint community. Valorie was concerned when schools in Flint started dropping music and art classes from their curriculums. So, she and her son started volunteering at the schools to teach art and music. This endeavor led to the formation of a nonprofit organization, the Chosen Few Arts Council.

Potter Valorie Horton can truly be described as “at one with clay.” She recently showed her collection aptly named At One With Clay at the Flint Institute of Art’s Art Sales & Rental Gallery. The variety of pieces included platters, bowls, and a wall piece that took her one year to make. “I wanted to show a broad range of my work,” said Valorie. “I want my viewers to force their eyes to see more, not just look at it but analyze it.” She also felt that the exhibition was a big step for her. “You are opening up your soul to people,” she said.

I wanted to write a story about my grandfathers. My father’s father was a big band leader in the ‘30s in Grand Rapids. He had a band called Herman Curtis and the Dusky Devastators of the Depression, and I just thought that was the best name in the world! I also wanted to tell the story about my mother’s father who was a pitcher in the Negro Baseball League. The story started out being about them. But as it evolved, it turned into the story of a ten-year-old orphan, Bud. When you are writing, you always put a little of yourself in there, too. There were many times when I was a little boy that I wanted to run away from home, but I was too smart. I knew what hunger felt like and I didn’t want it. After the first missed meal, I would have been back!

The first-prize winner of the 2015 William C. Byrd Young Artist Competition is pianist Baron Fenwick of New York. Baron performed Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 to a welcoming Flint audience at the competition March 7 at the J. Dallas Dort Music Center. At 20 years old, he is a third-year undergraduate student at Mannes College The New School for Music in New York and already has extensive experience as a soloist at numerous concerts, events and festivals around the country as well as other music competitions. This was his second experience in the prestigious Byrd competition, competing previously at age 16.

Walker (1945-2014) grew up in Marshall County in Northern Mississippi, which borders Fayette County in Tennessee. During the 1950s and 1960s, both Marshall and Fayette Counties were considered two of the poorest counties in the nation. They were isolated, rural communities burdened with poverty and oppression. After graduating from college in 1967, Walker worked as a teacher at Gatewood Baptist Church – a ragged, wood-frame structure with a tilted steeple, sinking foundation, and planks bowing from the ceiling. Its pastor was the Reverend Cole. Almost a decade later, after being away from the area for years, Walker returned and asked Reverend Cole to participate in a photographic essay about him and his congregation. Reverend Cole agreed, reserving only that he must first get approval from his congregation. ♦

Anthony wasn’t always so appreciative of fine art. While working at the Ruth Mott Foundation, he was introduced to the Mott-Warsch Collection of African American art. One day, while looking at the work of Jacob Lawrence, a prominent African-American artist, he made a flippant comment to the exhibition’s curator, Camille Ann Brewer: “My son can draw better than that.” Camille told Anthony to do a little research on the artist and the painting in question and to come back to talk more about it afterward. “I came back eating a lot of humble pie,” Anthony laughs. After digging into the artist’s background, Anthony learned that Lawrence’s Toussaint L’Ouverture series tells the visual story of a Haitian revolution leader’s life. Lawrence uses history and his own personal experience to explain human nature. “When I learned about the painting and the artist, I realized I was learning about black history for the first time,” Anthony remembered. Now, Lawrence is one of Anthony’s favorite artists of all time.

Growing up on a farm near Chapin, MI – if you’ve never heard of it, that’s okay, because it’s not even big enough to be a town – Tom has always loved the landscapes of the Mitten. “I attribute my love of landscapes to my rural upbringing,” he said. “My appreciation includes not only the beautiful places like the Great Lakes, but also the ordinary views, like the farm fields we drive by every day. I feel it is all an important part of our state and hope others see the beauty in the mundane as well as in the spectacular.” Tom’s paintings are, in part, an effort to get people to see the beauty in everyday views of the Michigan landscape. The artist is also aware that his paintings preserve a landscape that is changing. “A lot of farmland is being gobbled up and the scenes that I paint are disappearing,” he said. “It breaks my heart.”