Bloom House will officially unveil a free community art supply cabinet on its grounds on March 12, a project conceived by art therapy student Hanna Eide.
Eide originally came up with the idea during her year-long art therapy internship for Bloom House from the spring of 2023 to 2024. While conversing with Carolee Conway, Bloom House’s current art therapist and director of services, the two considered various means of making art supplies more accessible to the Emporia community.
Eide was inspired for the supply cabinet by an art gallery movement where people make art and place it in a box and others take the art for free.
“So it’s like, trade and make art type of thing,” said Eide. “But I was thinking of a way to make it like the little libraries, free pantries that you see around town.”
The Bloom House art supply cabinet will contain a number of tools to create art, such as markers, crayons, canvases and colored pencils. Community members are encouraged to use these supplies to make art, trade in their supplies, and even to place their work in the cabinet as a way of meeting other artists.
While she is reaching out to community organizations to acquire supplies, Eide wants the cabinet to run partly on individual donations.
“Bloom House, when I was there, would get donated supplies all the time, and then it was like a surplus of stuff that they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh. Where do we, you know? Where do we start putting this?’” she explained. “So (the cabinet) could be a place where extra supplies, like laying around in your house, you can put them in there.”
When Eide started the actual planning of this project for her master’s degree program in art therapy, she wanted the community to be involved. On Feb. 22, she held a community art day at Gravel City Roasters, where college students and community members were encouraged to paint the cabinet itself. During the event, attendees were given information about the cabinet, its purpose and its placement.
“They would stop in and ask, and they were really excited that this was going to be placed in the community,” Eide said. “They’re excited to donate their supplies lying around. A lot of them said that they’re going to go into their closets where they’ve just put random supplies and start donating them.”
A range of designs were painted on the cabinets sides by the end of the event. Eide says that they showcase the diversity of art, and she sees art and readily available art supplies as important to the community.
“I think it brings a place of creativity,” she said. “I think (the cabinet) can provide better access to our materials, which is a great place to do self expression, to freely express ourselves through their art.”
