There are artists among us. They may not look like
the atypical artists, with paint underneath their
fingernails or clay on their clothing. These artists
come in all shapes and sizes, big and small,
wearing suits, uniforms or just a regular old pair of
jeans. I’ve watched them come and go form the
brewery, and seen their abilities come out, depending
on which art medium currently is on tap at the
brewery. Part of their inspiration comes from one of
the bartenders, who is an art teacher by day. When
someone asked the bartender around Christmas
 time how to make a paper snow flake, the teacher in
her emerged and put a piece of paper and scissors
in front of the person. Weeks later, snowflakes made
by all the brewery patrons filled the windows of the
brewery. People who could identify their snowflake
would come in to show off their snowflake. Others
would come in and search for their creation, hoping
for bragging rights. At the end of those nights, I
hopped through a lot of small pieces of white paper
that had dropped to the floor during the snowflake
making process. But that was OK because I
thoroughly enjoyed watching the consternation that went into the making of some of those snowflakes. Apparently, making small cuts in white pieces of computer paper has a calming effect on some people. The brewery even kept a snowflake press handy to flatten the snowflakes before they were hung on the windows. In case you didn’t see it, the dictionary in the window served quite well as the make-shift snowflake press. Pipe cleaners were next art medium and some of those creations actually made it to the windows, too. Let’s see ,the fish, bowling balls and pin and Aimee’s name are still hanging up there. The current medium, also initiated by our art teacher/bartender, is an old favorite: Play-Doh. The simple craft loved by children also seems to be popular among adults. So far, patrons have found ways to make pizza, beer mugs, faces, flowers, shapely women, volcanos and an alligator out of the stuff. Many of the Play-Doh sculptures have survived the night and grace the bar tower now. But some of the creations are cracking, maybe because Play-Doh doesn’t have the stamina of other materials used in sculpting. Even if the Play-Doh creations don’t last long, it’s been awful fun watching the artists come out of these normal every day people!