The art of educating, expressing

COEUR d'ALENE - Juggling is an art, just as growing a garden can be.

Theater and opera as well, of course, but what about making up the beds in which the performers will sleep when they're in town putting on the show?

You bet.

But most important to each of the five Mayor's Awards in the Arts winners, is passing along the benefits art can teach the next generation.

It's showing them all the doors creative thinking can open.

"There's not doubt about it," said David Groth, Sorensen Magnet School teacher, and winner of the Education in Arts award. "It helps them want to come to school. It's a great media to teach anything."

All of the winners said they were shocked to learn they had even been nominated, let alone won. Surprising too, can be how popular Groth's juggling class at the art-minded school is. He's brought juggling festivals to North Idaho College, and tells his pupils they can accomplish anything using practice, concentration and discipline, like in juggling.

"Art is such a great way to express our thoughts and feelings and to explore our thoughts and feelings," he said. "I want the kids to find those aspects of art that are already in them, that are already there, to have avenues to them and express them."

Another art instructor, Michael Horswill of NIC, was awarded Excellence in Arts for his significant contribution to the awareness of the arts in Coeur d'Alene.

The sculptor and drawer creates pieces out of anything he can get his hands on, steel included. He was one of five artists invited to the prestigious 'Drawn to the Wall' project at Gonzaga University's Jundt Museum, and one of his latest pieces, 'Moon Song,' stands on the corner of Lakeside and Third Street in Coeur d'Alene. He called all of his pieces his little children: After he makes them, he throws them out into the world.

"I was kind of shocked by it, just in terms of being included in such a great group of people, how fortunate I am to be a part of that," Horswill said about he award. "There are a lot of people dedicated to making Coeur d'Alene the wonderful art community it is."

Roberta Larsen, winner of Support of the Arts, is a volunteer to many. The Coeur d'Alene native has hosted art events at her own Cougar Bay home, and has served on the Coeur d'Alene Public Library Foundation, Summer Theater board, Arts and Culture Alliance board, Citizens Council for the Arts and Opera Plus!

She raised funds, sold tickets, marketed and educated on behalf of those groups, plus whatever else needed to be done, like prepare the beds to accommodate the theater's stars.

"I'm really just a yeoman in the trenches of the nonprofits, that's what I am. And I adore the people I work with, I really do," Larsen said.

"It was really important that I threw myself in my hometown," she said.

The awards are presented by the Coeur d'Alene Arts Commission and the city to recognize and encourage excellence in the arts and to stimulate and support awareness of the arts throughout the city.

And gardens, don't forget.

The special recognition goes to Mike and Kim Normand, for their work creating the Shared Harvest Community Garden at 10th Street and Foster Avenue.

The 60 plots of garden are each decorated and tended to by different people, giving both the produce yield and aesthetic vibe of the former vacant lot a thing of beauty.

"It was a canvas. And a bare canvas," Kim said about the old lot that, with the help of volunteers, is producing 2,000 pounds of food a season in its third year.

The food goes to area food banks.

"It sounds kind of silly, but I told everyone when I got this started I wanted this to be a really positive project. And I meant that," Kim said. "And when you walk into the garden there's a real positive energy."

Mayor Sandi Bloem will present the awards at 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 10, at The Coeur d'Alene Resort. This event is open to the public.