CB to You Mobile Art Lab: Homegrown Festival

Energizing Community Through Art!

Siloam Springs, the CB to You Mobile Art Lab is coming to your neighborhood!

Join us this October at the Homegrown Festival in downtown Siloam Springs for a day packed with creativity and conversation focused on energizing communities through art. The Homegrown Festival showcases locally handmade goods, curated vintage, food trucks, and live music—and this year, the Mobile Art Lab! This special festival stop will feature the full tour’s lineup of regional artists, poets, and musicians in one festival day from 9 AM to 3 PM. 

From artmaking and Storycircles to artist talks and live studio demonstrations, this traveling celebration of creativity promises to bring a little bit of inspired fun to everyone. Each stop will culminate in a free outdoor concert and community art showcase.  Additionally, a special photo backdrop will be available for selfies inspired by the Selena Forever / Siempre Selena exhibition at the museum.

Join us in celebrating your hometown by creating art, stories, and memories together!

Free, no registration required.

Ziba Rajabi

Ziba Rajabi (b.1988, Tehran, Iran) received her MFA from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, and her BFA from the Sooreh University, Tehran. Her primary practice is focused on painting, drawing, and fiber-based installation. She is the recipient of the Artist 360 Grant, a program sponsored by the Mid-America Arts Alliance. Her work has been included in a number of exhibitions, nationally and internationally. She also has been an artist in residence at Vermont Studio Center.

Markeith Woods

Markeith is a portraitist who is interested in human character and uses symbols, words, and images to recreate his experiences. He uses many mediums, such as charcoal, graphite, acrylic, and pastels, to observe the subjects that interest him.

Lakisha Harper Bradley

Lakisha is a Social Practice Artist, Executive Director and Founder of MY-T-BY-DESIGN Therapeutic Art Studios located in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She uses a variety of painting mediums and uses art-making as a way to experience and release euphoric emotions.

Trinity Kai

Trinity creates work using her own personal narrative and examines systems of discrimination that exist within society. She creates through self-portraiture, written language, and materiality to share her experiences and bring viewers into conversations that can be reflective and transformational.

Tay Butler

He works in photography, collage/assemblage, video, music, and sound exhibitions and installations. Tay is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work layers both the present-day and archival Black experience, as well as the histories, realities, and theories that influence those experiences.

Junli Song

Junli is a storyteller and uses visual narratives to explore the cultural ambiguities of being Chinese American. Her work reveals how identity is fluid as inherited stories and traditions are continually evolving.

Mackenzie Turner

MacKenzie Turner received a BFA in ceramics from the University of Arkansas in 2020. They have exhibited their work in the United States including Forage Modern Workshop in Minneapolis, Crust Bucket Collective in Farmingdale, Maine and Madison, Wisconsin; and the Fenix Gallery, Walker-Stone House, and pH Gallery in Northwest Arkansas. MacKenzie currently has a studio practice in Siloam Springs, AR.

MacKenzie is an artist who works primarily in ceramics. Their work speaks of the people, personal stories, and natural beauty remembered from growing up in small towns in Arkansas and Missouri.

A pop-up performance will also be given by artist Craig Colorusso! Craig will be performing his work Ladybug Cathedral. Using a bowed guitar, Craig’s Ladybug Cathedral is a long, slow, and deliberate performance that invites listeners to just listen and let the sound wash over them. Craig is a sound-based artist whose explorative work extends beyond sound and utilizes light and sculpture. In the past five years, Colorusso has combined his interests in the permanent and semi-permanent works: Sound Swings, Moon Pod, Covered Bridge ONE, and The Tunnel.

An extra pop-up performance will be given by Papa Rap and the fun love drum circle. Papa Rap will be performing alongside Bongo Luigi Vazquez and together they will teach everyone about different drum rhythms and cultures through reading stories, hands-on activities, singing and dancing!

Papa Rap, also known as Al Lopez, is a Puerto Rican musician who connects communities through music-making and performances. The goal of his music is to encourage understanding and togetherness through educational and fun lyricism!

Storytelling events will be led by guest poets and storytellers from the Open Mouth Reading Series and Poetic Justice: Speak Your Jewel!

Open Mouth Reading Series is a community-based literary organization located in Fayetteville, Arkansas. They have partnered with local organizations to bring engaging and creative events, programming, experiences, exchanges, content, and dialogues to Northwest Arkansas. OM hosts monthly readings and writing workshops as well as many other writing and engagement opportunities for poets and community members. Their featured poets will share readings of their own work while guiding a storytelling circle, encouraging guests through activity prompts and storytelling to participate in writing and sharing stories about their experiences in their own communities.

Poetic Justice: Speak Your Jewel! is sponsored by the local nonprofit organization Light House Solutions. Speak your Jewel is a diverse group of Social Artists within the NWA area. They come from all different walks of life to spark courage and participation within the community. Their artists are known for activating their jewels through dance, poetry, singing, painting and acting to deliver the power of their stories. Their mission is to help people believe humanity and divinity are one within us and their mantra is: You must never suffocate the genius that lies within you.

For the finale of the day, CB to You invites you to a live music gathering by country artist Will Gunselman, presented in collaboration with Music Moves.

Arkansas native Will Gunselman has been writing and playing music for two decades. His lyrics embody his love for nature, for Arkansas, and for his family. His passion for storytelling runs deep, and he is always inspired to create a connection with the audience and make those interactions memorable.

Don’t forget to pick up your free art kit before you go!

The CB to You Mobile Art Lab is a traveling pop-up art experience energizing the power of community through art. Featuring regional artists from across Northwest Arkansas, the art lab will be visiting local libraries and festivals around the region to bring artmaking, music, storytelling, and more. Find out more about the program, see a full schedule of stops, and get to know our guest artists here!

The CB to You Mobile Art Lab is presented in partnership with Ziba Rijabi, Markeith Woods, Lakisha Harper Bradley, Trinity Kai, Tay Butler, and Junli Song. Pop-up performances will be performed by Papa Rap’s the fun love drum line, Craig Colorusso’s Lady Bug Cathedral Sessions, and Music Moves. Story sharing events are presented with Ozark Poets and Writers Collective, Open Mouth Reading Series, and Poetic Justice: Speak Your Jewel!