Kids and paint go together like peanut butter and jelly, and the combination can lead to quite a mess. But Paintfest, now in its second year, encourages children of all ages to get dirty and explore colors.
"It's a multi-generational event that's designed for families to interact with each other," Oneonta World of Learning (OWL) board member Carolyn Chryst said Saturday as she handed out empty pizza boxes for the kids to store their finished products in. "We're focused on playing with paint, not 800 rules for how to play with it."
"We want kids to step out of their comfort zones with paint and go crazy," organizer Amy Pondolfino said.
The event was free, but a $5 donation to OWL was encouraged.
Kids used brushes and their hands to paint on the plastic-covered walls at The Arc Otsego's Day Services building on Lower River Street. Straws were used to make bubble art in one meeting room. Outside, marbles were rolled through paint to craft paintings resembling early-era works of Jackson Pollock. In another room, kids painted place mats, pottery and paper.
Participants also lined up to paint outlines of popular Sesame Street characters that were tacked up along the hallway. Their interpretations of Bert, Ernie and Big Bird will be part of a display sponsored by WSKG that will travel throughout the public station's listening area in celebration of the show's 40th anniversary.
But the little painters weren't the only ones learning by doing. South Kortright potter Solveig Comer supervised the pottery-painting workshop.
"The kids are really good," she said. "They always do things I didn't think of. When you do this all the time, you can get kind of stuck."
"My kids could do this all day," Diana DeGarmo said. She was at the event with her three daughters, ages 1, 3 and 5. "They really like to paint, and someone else can clean up the mess."
Local high school and college students volunteered to keep paint cups filled and traffic moving. The best part of the day for Gilbertsville-Mount Upton 10th grader Kali Murphy was "watching the kids have fun as they dig into the paint."
"And get messy," Oneonta High School 10th grader Alexandria Graig-Tiso added.
Last year, the kids used squirt bottles to paint Mayor John Nader. This year, OWL invited local school principals to get involved. More than 3,000 votes were cast online to determine which principal would be painted. Valleyview Elementary's Walt Baskin was the winner.
Ultimately, the event is a fundraiser for OWL, whose goal, according to organizer Andrea Thies, is to have "a dedicated space for OWL, where we can do events and have permanent exhibits."
The group is working with the State University College at Oneonta's Cooperstown Graduate Program in Museum Studies on a feasibility study, and the results will be presented in December.
