Photos by Jamie Plain
When gun violence affected Will Evans personally, he decided to do something about it.
In the last few years, Evans’ wife’s sister (Stephanie Green) and cousin (Chris Green) were both victims of gun violence. Not only that, Evans occasionally hears gunshots ring out in his neighborhood. Will started thinking, What could I do about it? How can I help? What can a normal guy like me do to turn things around?
Art was his answer.
More specifically: getting kids involved in the arts. Which might seem small, but sometimes small changes can have huge ripple effects over time.
“Art is a positive outlet for me,” Evans told Owensboro Living. “Art is inspiring and all about positive expression. A lot of kids find community through sports, which can be a positive outlet, as well. But not all kids play sports, and art can be experienced by everyone. So I thought, ‘Let’s just have a summer camp where we do art with kids every day.’” The idea began as simple as that.
At first.
But now, other community organizations and local artists have gotten involved, and Will’s art camp idea has grown into something bigger than Evans ever dreamed.
It has since evolved into the Estes Bulldog Art Camp, which consists of a week-long summer art camp for two separate age groups. The week of June 24-28 is for kindergarten through 2nd grade. The week of July 15-19th is for 3rd through 5th grades. Both weeks of camp run 8am – noon at Estes Elementary. [Editor’s note: Estes Bulldog Art Camp is open to Estes students this first year, but the hope is to open it to all Owensboro Public School students next year.]
Kids will be learning from guest artists each day and using different mediums throughout the camp, including pencil, ink, acrylic, paint on canvas, sidewalk chalk, and clay sculpting.
Evans says art has always been a huge part of his life. He grew up reading comics and watching his dad do art, so he’s always been around art. But in his young adult years he abandoned it while he was raising a family and starting a career. Then, during the Covid shut down, he dove back into art. “I started painting again and got accepted into an art gallery where I got to meet the Governor. I was published in a few magazines and even got commissioned to do a piece.”
His art camp idea got a jump start last year when Evans met local artist Aaron Kizer at the Barrels of heART fundraiser for United Way. When the two artists spoke next, Evans mentioned his idea to host an art camp to Kizer, who immediately said he’d support it by providing materials. Kizer Construction is now one of the major sponsors for the Estes Bulldog Art Camp.
“Once I knew Aaron Kizer was behind it, I really got hyped about it,” Evans admitted. “That’s when I decided to go big and just went nuts with it.”
So, with that boost of confidence, Evans reached out to other local artists, began collecting materials, and started soliciting other donations for supplies and lunch for the campers. The first two restaurants he reached out to, Lure and Fetta, both said “yes.” Soon there were enough restaurants, food trucks, and caterers to provide lunch and breakfast for the campers. (See sidebar.)
In addition to Kizer Construction sponsoring the art supplies, Big Bang Comics donated comic books. Courtney Evans and Camille Armstrong will be capturing the magic through photography. Evan’s daughters, Sykiah and Imani, will also be volunteering to help. And the list of guest artists continues to grow. (See sidebar.)
Now Will had momentum, but he still needed a place to host the art camp. That piece of the puzzle fell into place when he met LJ Douglas, Family Resource Center director at Estes Elementary. Once LJ heard about the idea, the art camp found a home at Estes.
Thus the name, Estes Bulldog Art Camp.
“It’s been a great collaboration with LJ. He’s given 100% support and total freedom to dream anything and try anything and make it happen. The sky’s the limit with LJ,” Evans said.
“With all this community support, Estes Bulldog Art Camp has taken on a life of its own. People are already asking to register their kids. The more people hear about it, the more excitement there is. It’s so uplifting. There’s no way I could have done this on my own. I’m just a regular guy. Kids are our future. They’ll be running our community one day. I can’t wait to see what happens with this camp.”
For more information or to register, contact LJ Douglas at 270-686-1058.