Taylor Barnes has worked tirelessly to promote the arts and every person’s potential to create or enjoy artistry to their own capacity. She has established with little to no budget, a program, Arts After School, for children to whom sports programs neither speak nor draws out the young students’ true talents.
She has gone further in opening up the realm of art for young students. She has, for example, established an artist-in-residency and an annual culture festival, bringing together artists from around the world to perform in Jamestown. She has worked through the North Dakota Council on the Arts to establish adult classes, even ones in long-term care facilities, reaching all ages and involving diverse groups in the creative process. And such a choice of processes she has created for study: cooking, dance, gardening, drawing or yoga. She has provided a venue for all groups to find common bond, work, and belong. Her improvement of the quality of life lead the town’s leaders to name her, Citizen of the Year.
Taylor has an entirely open mind and provides an equally open home to any artist in need or in town. She makes every visiting artist who comes to The Arts Center feel at home, and she invites friends and fellow artists to meet, work with, and get to know the visiting guest and his or her work. She has no budget for this entertaining or hospitality, but never hesitates to extend herself. During the workday, Taylor opens minds as she opens possibilities, and she has helped form the many dedicated volunteers she has recruited to the cause.
A teacher by profession and an incredibly dedicated promoter of the arts by passion, Taylor Barnes works from the central tenant that what our society needs and badly lacks, especially in small, and rural communities, is art in all of its genres and possibilities. Articulate, yet modest, ambitious but never self-serving, Taylor Barnes provides the space, the resources, and the encouragement to those persons who devote their time and energy to teaching and guiding others towards self-expression –– and their community’s aspirations.
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