For almost a decade, Emergent Arts has served as the local arts center for Hot Springs, being a home for emerging artists to come and cultivate their talents.
Previously located in Whittington Place, the historic 1890s church on Whittington Avenue, the nonprofit organization is now located down the street at 341-A Whittington Ave., in front of Dryden Pottery. It is run by Executive Director Erin Holliday and Program Manager Kara Gunter.
Emergent Arts offers programs in visual, literary and performing arts for ages 5 and older.
"Our mission is to foster creativity among emerging artists of all ages and abilities," Holliday said. "So really, our purpose is not so much to teach someone how to paint, it's to provide them with the resources to be creative; and if their creative outlet is painting, if it's ceramics, or writing, or whatever, we just want to remove whatever barriers might be there."
The focus is on the emerging artist, and the organization works to remove financial barriers with an outreach scholarship program to assist those who are low- and moderate-income by discounting programs anywhere from 25-75%. It also removes knowledge barriers by providing different lessons in media that may be new to an artist, as well as ability barriers to providing a safe and flexible place for those with disabilities to come and thrive in their creativity.
"We make sure our teaching artists are prepared to work with students of all abilities, and we've had a lot of success with special needs students coming here and really being able to do some wonderful things in our classes," Holliday said.
While the organization is for all ages, another particular focus is on the young artist.
"For young people, a lot of artists, we tend to be the outsiders," Holliday said. "We might think a little differently, or do things a little differently, or be the weird kid; I know I was the weird kid. And what's great is we'll have kids come here and I've had parents say on many occasions in slightly different ways that they were so excited that their child had found their people.
"You know, they didn't really fit in their homeroom, but they come here and it's the other weird art kids, and they get to be weird art kids together because that's what we do. You watch these kids really come out of their shells, and become really confident in who they are in the world because they found a place where there's other like-minded people, and I think that's really important."
Holliday and Gunter both landed in Emergent Arts after moving to Hot Springs; or in Holliday's case, back to Hot Springs from Kansas City. Holliday came on as executive director in 2012 to help revitalize Emergent Arts, and Gunter came on as an art instructor in 2018 after moving here from Columbia, S.C.
"I grew up here," Holliday said, "and when I was in high school I'd go to gallery walk, I'd volunteer for documentary film festival and just was always involved in the arts. I moved to Kansas City and got a BSA in sculpture in Kansas City, and lived up there for 13 years and worked in a commercial gallery, worked at that community nonprofit with community art, I worked as a professional art handler and art installer, and just was always in some field of the arts, and decided in 2010 to move back.
"I thought I would come back for a short time, and then go somewhere else. I was just coming, like a pit stop. Obviously, that was not the case. ... I was already getting plugged back into the art community here ... so having an opportunity to spend time growing an organization that would affect positive change in my community, and my arts community was really appealing."
As for Gunter, when she moved here three years ago, she looked up every single arts opportunity there was here in Hot Springs and came across Emergent Arts. Holliday had just put a call out for teaching artists for workshops, so she applied to that and has been involved ever since.
Moving from a larger city with a larger arts scene, Gunter described Hot Springs as having a more "intimate" art scene.
"Everyone knows everyone else, which I personally really like," she said. "You're not a nobody in a bigger sea of people. There's just so much opportunity here for the community."
And a lot of the local artistic opportunities can be found at Emergent Arts.
"We have all of the different studios; the wood shop, the darkroom, fiber studio, 3D studio and ceramics, and just all of this space just to be creative," Gunter said.
There is also a studio membership available, making these resources available to members 24/7.
"A lot of people may have a kitchen table, or a garage to work at, but they don't necessarily have a potter's wheel, or a black and white enlarger, or even a sewing machine," Holliday said. "So for a small amount of money they can come in and have access to all of this equipment so they don't have the barrier of whatever tools or equipment."
Emergent Arts has also recently opened up a "pop-up" art supply shop, run out of a donated shipping container. It is filled with excess donations the organization receives, being sold on a "name your price" basis.
"If we can't use (donated supplies) immediately, we put them out there and we're selling them at a discount, so that's something else that we're really offering the community is greatly reduced art materials and that's something I want people to be taking advantage of," Gunter said.
Having grown up here, Holliday said she never had anything like Emergent Arts, but would have loved it as an artistic kid.
"A lot of my exploration, I did on my own, and I feel like we're really creating our own little community of Emergent Arts artists, which is our teachers, our more established and adult artists, our kid artists; because all in this studio, everything intersects," she said.
"The artists that come in to display in the gallery will see what the kids are working on, and vice verses. So there's this additional conversation that happens where everyone kind of inspires each other because they're working alongside each other, and I hope when we return to after school, that will happen even more.
"We'll have artists working in the studios, adult artists next to the kid artists who are in the classes, and they would encourage and inspire one another just by working alongside each other. ... I really hope that we just encourage our arts community to continue to come together."
"We want more and more people to be here," Holliday said, "and to grow this safe and encouraging environment for creative people, and any creative people."