By DAVID CLOUSTON

Salina Journal

The sponges dipped in paint helped 3-year-old Mathew Schutz craft his own masterpiece under his dad, Tom's, supervision Saturday.

Part of Saturday afternoon's Holiday Open House at the Salina Art Center warehouse, 149 S. Fourth, was about getting hands-on messy with the creative process.

For hundreds of children and their parents, that meant passing from craft station to craft station taking a whirl at the glue, glitter, paint, pom-pom balls and other materials to decorate paper shopping bags and make pictures.

The occasion also served as the official revealing to the public of the 4,000 square-foot art center studio space. Artists in residence through the center are able to live in a small apartment in the studio while they create new works, usually for a few months at a stretch.

"I think the space will really allow some artists to do some work that they otherwise could not," said interim art center director Wendy Mosier.

"We wanted to leave the space very raw -- very, very raw," she said, gazing at the concrete floor and exposed brick walls of the renovated warehouse. "Just so that we wouldn't worry about an artist spilling something and we couldn't get it cleaned up. And for events like this, it's perfect."

The Holiday Open House was part of a day of events downtown, capped off by the annual Christmas festival and parade of lights down Santa Fe Avenue. The event featured entertainment, carriage rides and holiday displays.

"You want to go do a different color? There's blue," Veronica Schutz asked her son, Nicholas, 5, who was decorating a paper sack across the table from his brother and father.

"Are you going to wrap a present in there? My present?" Tom Schutz asked Mathew.

"Yeah," Mathew replied.

The Schutz family, 1304 Quincy, remarked at the size of the warehouse space -- "It's huge," Veronica said.

Kim Kerr, 1507 Sycamore, brought her two daughters to the open house. Her daughters, Hope Schuman, 8, and Skyler Kerr, 7, have long enjoyed classes at the art center, she said. Now the warehouse space promises even more opportunities. She nodded when asked if she would like to see more family events there.

"I would. Anything that works for the kids is great," Kerr said.

n Reporter David Clouston can be reached at 822-1403 or by e-mail at dclouston@salina.com.

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