TAZEWELL COUNTY, Va. -The Citizens for the Arts, or CART (Community Artist Residency Training), was created with the mission of bringing art to the community that you’d normally have to travel to see.
“CART started in 1981 with a group of ladies in Mary Lawson’s home and decided that, if all of us could go and see the arts in other communities, then the art should be able to come to us…” explains Ginger Branton, executive director for CART.
Branton says they started small but soon grew, in variety and scale, bringing both big shows and big artists to the Tazewell County area, including Burl Ives, folk singer and voice of the snowman from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
However, their emphasis was always connecting local kids to art, eventually starting an “Arts and Education” program in conjunction with the area’s schools.
“…The children were just so excited and so thrilled to actually see these things going on on-stage, and I think that’s helped our students see that there are more things than, I hate to say this, but just sports, you know? And sports is a great thing, physically active, but art is also very, very important,” says Elaine Holmes, president of CART.
Holmes says CART has had a positive influence on local kids, and, in one example she gave, may have inspired a some of them to become musicians.
“A friend of mine is a doctor, and his wife is a nurse, and all of their children decided to become musicians…” recalls Holmes, “…she and her husband both would bring their children to these performances, and he said, look what an influence it had on my children; they all became musicians.”
Now, with Branton set to retire and costs going up, CART is ending after forty-four years. The capped things off with what she calls “a full circle weekend,” with an Arts and Education class at the Tazewell County Library, premiere showing of the new documentary ‘Richlands Mural,’ and, on Sunday, the puppet show “New Squid on the Block,” a fitting end, Branton says, for an organization focused on arts for kids.
This “unconventional” puppet show used 22 different hand, rod, and shadow puppets to tell the story of a squid wanting to make friends. This was performed by Barefoot Puppet Theater, who have been featured by CART before.
Heidi Rugg, director and founder of the Barefoot Puppet Theater, praised CART for continuously bringing shows like hers to the area.
“Any work in the arts is a true labor of love and with an emphasis on both the labor and the love part, and I just think that what Mrs. Branton has done is so, so, so tremendous…” says Rugg, “…Theater especially is just a great way to bring people together in the same space to have a shared experience. You know, without shared experiences, we can’t have shared things to talk about, and it’s really nice to be in a room full of other people who are laughing, and I just think that any opportunities just to bring people together in a community just builds up the community.”
We spoke to Jeffrey Mathis, owner of Recording & Sound, who started doing the behind-the-scenes work for CART around when they first began. He says he’s happy to have gotten to do this work, but sad to see it end, adding that the past four decades have brought local kids experiences that they may not otherwise get to see.
“…I really feel bad that they’re not going to have that for all the youth coming up now, I mean, it’s just going to be a void. So, I hate to see it, really. I really do,” says Mathis.
Holmes and Branton say, despite accomplishing their mission of bringing arts to the area, art will always play a role in all our lives and will continue to be preserved here as well, if you put forth the effort to find and nurture it.
“I don’t think the arts will ever die, you know? I think we have enough people in our communities to realize just the value… of the arts and the role that it does play in their quality of life…” says Branton, “…all I can say is, if you have the desire, you have the energy, and you have the mindset to follow your dream, go for it.”
Mathis and Rugg both say they’ve enjoyed working with CART and specifically Ginger Branton. Although this will be her last time partnering with CART, Rugg says she hopes to return to this area again in the future for more unconventional puppet shows.
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