Art Show to Take Place All Around St. Cloud Saturday

(KNSI) – On Saturday, July 10th, artists in the St. Cloud area will display their art out on their lawns for the public to enjoy during the Drive-By Art Show.

From noon to 7 p.m., people can walk, bike or drive around St. Cloud to see local artists and their art. Printed maps are available starting Thursday at Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union and LGS Electronics; the art show map is also available online. Participants will also have green signs in their yards to affirm that they are part of the show.

Kelli Henry, who goes by The Silent Kah, started the drive-by art show last year. She began creating art while she was experiencing topical steroid withdrawal, which left her bedridden for months.

“When I started doing art, I was in so much pain,” she said. “But when I was doing art … it shifted me out of the hell I was in, all of this horrific pain, and I would just be focusing on colors and this art I was creating.”

After Kah created several paintings, she wanted to share them with others but ran into several obstacles when she tried displaying her work at festivals and galleries.

“I found out that there were so many regulations, like that you had to have a tax ID to join [a festival],” she said. “For me, I had nothing; I didn’t work, I couldn’t move and I didn’t have money. I didn’t have a tax ID. Sometimes you have to have a website to get in certain places. All of these things stopped me from being able to just share my art.”

Kah says her boyfriend gave her the idea of sharing her art in their own yard, and she took it a step further, inviting other artists who could be experiencing the same roadblocks she encountered to share their artwork with the community.

“My message is: You are far more powerful than you have ever imagined, and I want people to take your own power back to be able to display their art in their own yard, and then they’re going to be able to sell it right there in their own yard,” Kah said. “A lot of people get stuck in this thinking that they have to do it a certain way. They have to have a college degree to be artists, and they have to go about things in a set way. And I just want to break out of that, break out of limitations, break out of negative thinking and just really be able to put the power back in themselves.”

With that goal in mind, Kah started the drive-by art show last year, spreading the word through flyers and making signs. Sarah Hom, branch manager for Affinity Plus, says Kah’s grassroots efforts to organize the recurring show spoke to the credit union’s history of standing up to big banks and working for the people. Affinity Plus is a sponsor of the Drive-By Art Show and will also be participating Saturday.

“We’re making a community art piece, making the art as the day goes,” Hom said. “People can stop by and participate in creating this community art piece that we’ll be working on.”

Hom said that for the August 14th drive-by art show, Affinity Plus is looking to host kids’ artwork in the building’s parking lot.

Kah adds that an ice cream truck, Dream Ice Cream, will be driving around the areas where art is on display Saturday so people can also get ice cream while they look at the artwork.

Kah says she hopes to expand the art show project in the future, already with plans to hold a drive-by art show in Brainerd next summer.

Artists interested in being featured in the August show can contact Kah at thesilentk.artist@gmail.com. Parents interested in displaying their kids’ artwork at Affinity Plus during the August show can contact shom@affinityplus.org.

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