Photo Credit: River Road Park and Recreation District
As classroom sizes get larger, school budgets shrink, and subjects like drama, music, and art seem to be activities of the past, what is a budding 7-year-old artist to do? These were questions and concerns I had back in the early 1980s when my daughter was small and art classes were diminishing.
Back then, my family and I visited the “Bookmobile.” It was a simple concept: Fill an old bus with books, travel from neighborhood to neighborhood, and give kids the opportunity to read. It was a great idea and one of my daughter’s favorite activities. That idea prompted me to ask, “Why couldn’t River Road Park & Recreation District use that same concept and apply it to art?” Take a bus and paint it with bright colors, retrofit it with tables and a sink, drive it from neighborhood to neighborhood, and allow children the opportunity to create, imagine, and enjoy art.
For years I pitched the concept, and everyone had the same reaction: “That’s interesting, but how would you do that? Who would paint the bus? Who would do the work to retrofit it? Who would maintain it? What would we do with the bus? Do you really think kids would like it?”