Raising the Tent for Art Alley

Workers assembling framework for enormous tent housing tomorrow’s V.I.P. event

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter to the world if you paint or dance or write. The world can probably get by without the product of your efforts. But that is not the point. The point is what the process of following your creative impulses will do for you. It is clearly about process. Love the work, love the process.

Ian Roberts, Creative Authenticity

Stepping outside The Redlands Hotel early this morning, my heart quickened when I rounded the corner and saw the framework for an enormous tent under construction. Friday night 5-9:00 kicks off the V.I.P. event for Art Alley, the fine arts portion of Palestine’s annual Dogwood Festival. V.I.P. tickets sell for $20 per person and attendees will have advance opportunity to purchase the art that will be under the tent when the Festival opens Saturday and runs till 4:00. Four of our Twelve will be under the tent enjoying the crowd along with the live music, heavy hors d’oeuvres and beverages. Our gallery artists under the tent, along with myself, will be Deanna Pickett Frye, Cecilia Bramhall and Stacy Campbell. Stacy is already on her way today, pulling a trailer down the highway, excited for the event. Deanna and Cecilia, local artists, don’t have the long travel, but are ecstatic all the same. And I, well I am in the gallery along with Wayne and Sandi, still stitching up details.

Rising this morning and sitting down to coffee, I looked out my favorite window again, in suite 207 of The Redlands Hotel, through the fire escape and at the stately Carnegie Library across the street, and breathed a prayer of thanks for being included in this endeavor. After years of grinding out work as an artist and coming to terms with the quote above that the world will get along just fine without my contributions, I have always wondered why it is that I was finally recognized and invited to participate in ventures such as this. Palestine is such a nostalgic town with this historic hotel, the Union Pacific yards down the street, a Catholic Church next door that gleams like a pearl in the sun, and people so friendly and unpretentious. I’m grateful to be invited to participate in these community events, and happy that I have a place to display my art, and even happier now to be surrounded by so many creative colleagues. We The Twelve breathlessly await the gathering Saturday night when we open the doors to The Gallery at Redlands and begin the next chapter in our journey.

Sitting next to the window in suite 207 of The Redlands Hotel

Thanks for reading.

I make art in order to discover.

I journal when I feel alone.

I blog to remind myself I am not alone.

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Tags: David Tripp artist, Dogwood Trails Art & Music Festival, The Gallery at Redlands