EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the final installment in a series of articles about new murals in the downtown area.
As the renovation of the Central Theatre continues, its owner recruited artists to add new murals to the theater's facade and on an adjacent building, joining other recent additions to the downtown area's mural landscape.
Artist Jason Botkin came to Hot Springs to assist international artist Danaé Brissonnet in painting the mural that now graces the wall at 110 Central Ave., and while here he attended a burlesque show at Central Theatre and met Chris Rix, the venue's owner.
Rix pitched Botkin the idea of doing a mural on the theater, which then grew to include two murals.
The front mural depicts Echinacea plants, Botkin said, which are one of the plants indigenous to Arkansas.
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"So there's three great, big Echinacea-like forms on the wall, and it's long been known by first-nation communities and people in general as a herbal medicine that's very powerful in its ability to strengthen the immune system, so I think in evoking that plant as an image on the wall, it's a subtle nod to that capacity of fortifying one's immune system by getting back into nature," Botkin said.
"What is our relationship to the land, to the plants, to the animals?" he said. "What is a healthy relationship to those things and specifically in a place where we're offering community and cultural -- what is the health of the culture?"
"When I got the building, the other building next door where the deli's going to be, I saw this big opportunity because there was this large concrete area and to me that was a canvas so I've just been putting it out into the universe," Rix said. "The side mural was what I was putting into the universe to arrive and the front mural happened."
The idea for the mural on the side of the building was that of one that would glow in the dark, Rix said, "and because of the high sun saturation on the side, we moved to under the canopy of the marquee to keep it out of the harmful UV (rays), and then we have just gone ahead with the daytime mural on the side."
For the mural on the side of the building, Rix said the theme is the rainbow.
"If you actually look, starting at Central, it goes red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, and then it repeats," he said, it's an "all-inclusive, prideful rainbow backdrop."
Sixteen artists, including Miranda Brewer, of Hot Springs, and her daughter, Aria River, 5, contributed to the side mural.
Brewer said this is the first mural she has worked on, noting her section of the mural represents "I Love You."
"There's a large green eye and then the heart and kind of a finger pointing at you," she said.
"Luckily Mrs. (Mary) Zunick with the Arts Council gave me a message and said they had room for another artist, so I rushed over as soon as I could," Brewer said.
"Every opportunity to be a part of Hot Springs National Park's history is wonderful," she said, noting getting to have her daughter help was exciting.
Brewer said this was also a learning experience for her as Botkin was teaching her as they painted.
While the artists were working, when one would get stuck, Botkin would go "over there and kick them and say 'What if you did a little brush stroke like this?' and it's just opened up an energy path for them to move right forward," Rix said.
Botkin said he was sharing his knowledge with the other artists so that "we're able to come together and create this mural together."
Brewer said she likes that Rix is fixing up the theater. "I have been waiting for someone to do that for decades. I have always loved this place. My first experience with it was being a participant with helping backstage for the Marilyn Monroe Broadway, traveling Broadway show, which was wonderful, but the building needed so much help so when Chris stepped in I was like 'Thank you.'"
Rix is creating magic by fixing up the classic theater, Botkin said, calling the building "more like this laboratory where people can experiment with how to revitalize the community. This isn't just a place for shows but this is really a place for people to come and gather."
He said working with Rix has been "a really rare opportunity because here is this kind of commercial environment but Chris has given me the freedom to do my best work without constraints or micromanaging in the same way that if Chris invites an artist here to play on the main stage, what he's encouraging is creative expression at it's finest without the boundaries or political correctness or bureaucratic interference or whatever it is."
Rix has "given the blank canvas for the artists in which artists can perform and do their best, and for me that's the biggest gift in this project," Botkin said.
"It's not about any form of exchange that I have with him on finances. Those things are irrelevant; that's another conversation that's really interesting, but for me, the biggest gift is be able to do what I love doing and not only is that painting the mural at the front, but also getting to know an incredible community," he said.
Miranda Brewer paints on a collaborative mural around the corner from Central Theatre. - Photo by Tanner Newton of The Sentinel-Record
This new mural subtly depicts the colors of a rainbow. - Photo by Tanner Newton of The Sentinel-Record