Verschoyle, Project Palette Bring Images of Peace International artist to conduct Utopia youth summer art program

by Elizabeth Tarski, Staff Writer
The Uvalde Leader-News
Sunday, July 14, 2002

When several Utopia residents decided to come up with an activity for their children, they didn't realize how big a project it would become.

"We wanted something that would be interesting, not just teaching, but something of value," said Mary Virginia Pittman-Waller, a Utopia resident Pittman-Waller, a member of the committee that organized the event, proceeded to call an artist friend of hers, Julie Verschoyle.

"I asked her for recommendations on how to go about organizing an art class... and because she feels so strongly about inspiring young people, she said, "I'll come teach those children,'" said Pittman-Waller. Then, as word of the Utopia art classes spread, the committee, which is chaired by Kathy Ruby, realized that adults were interested in classes, too.

"We decided to make all of the classes open to adults."

"If all the surrounding communities are really interested and like the idea, and participate, the desire is to make it a yearly program and add to it," continued Pittman-Waller, who cited classes on activities such as ballet and music as future possibilities.

Because Verschoyle is the artist who will be leading the classes, there are several opportunities that will come out of them.

"The first week will actually be art instruction with acrylic painting.  Anyone interested in some additional drawing training is also welcome," said Verschoyle of the two-week program.

"During the second week, we'll work with actual works of art to be submitted," she continued, adding that the submissions will be to the program that Verschoyle herself started: Color the World in Peace.  "The bottom line of the program is just to get images of peace out there," said Verschoyle of the program she originally thought up while living in Rockport.

"It was about the end of the war in Sarajevo and I was about to travel there," she said.

Verschoyle calls herself a 'natural humanitarian' and said that when she researched the country she was about to visit and the artists within that country, she was touched.

"A Sarajevo rose is made when a mortar round hits a wall and someone has died.  Artists would go in at night and paint the indentations red," she explained.

"What the artists were trying to express really made an impression," Verschoyle said.

When she went to Sarajevo, the artist took art supplies with her and gave them to people in the war-torn country.

"The impact that art has on someone who has been traumatized - it's amazing," she said of her experiences.

Out of this experience, Color the World in Peace was born.  It will eventually be an international traveling fine art exhibition that Verschoyle hopes will help people to see what could be.

"Some of the artists I've spoken to don't visualize peace and so can't participate " which reinforces the need.  If we can't visualize something, how can we achieve it?" Verschoyle asked as a way of explaining her motives.

Pittman-Waller who is on the board of directors of Project Palette, the organization which Verschoyle founded and that houses the Color the World in Peace project, thinks that Verschoyle is the person to accomplish 'global peace through art,' as Project Palette's motto goes.

"She's very vivacious and very charming, such a loving, spiritual personality," she said of the artist, who she feels will be a real treat to Utopia and the surrounding areas.

"She will be such an asset to our community, you just don't normally get something like this," she continued.

Verschoyle is happy to be going to Utopia, as well.

"The fact that art work (for Color the World in Peace) is coming out of Utopia is a truly fabulous metaphor," she exclaimed, stating that she finds joy in the look on people's faces when she tells them she's going to Utopia for two weeks, and they don't realize she means the small Texas town.

She added that the International Children's Art Museum is very interested in the project, and particularly interested with the art that will be coming from Utopia.

In addition to the possible honor of having works depicting peace on display all over the world, artists who attend the Utopia Summer Art program could possibly be published in Poet Magazine.

"The emphasis behind the magazine is to inspire people who aren't professional poets to write," explained Pittman-Waller.

"The have aspiring artists that are in the magazine along with professional artists," she continued, adding that she hopes that the possibility of having their artwork published will be a real asset to those attending the workshop.

"We hope to inspire an artist to say, "You know, I can try harder to be a part of the art world,'" said Verschoyle, as she summed up everything that those in Utopia and the art instructor herself hope to accomplish.