By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
Messages of love, welcome, belief, faith and encouragement are growing in an art rock garden on South Main Street.
The idea for the art rock garden in front of the Harbor Connection Center at 309 S. Main St., was “planted” by Cathi Arcuri, the same woman who created Smiley Mail.
Arcuri, whose life changed dramatically nearly 30 years ago when a devastating automobile accident left her in a wheelchair and with spinal cord, vocal cord and traumatic brain injuries, now devotes her days to spreading kindness and inspiration.
She conceptualized the rock garden one day when she parked her van in the accessible parking space next to the tree in front of the Connection Center.
“The tree needed some joy,” she said. The space was filled with weeds, and she was told that flowers and other plants couldn’t grow in the root-bound plot.
“I thought every time I saw that lonely tree all by itself with no one to love or notice there is a tree even there, with the beautiful canopy that protects me entering and exiting my van, what can I do?” she remembered thinking at the time.
Her idea was to fill the space with art and positive affirmations for Connection Center colleagues and anyone walking by the building. With the Black Swamp Arts Festival next week, Arcuri hopes the arts community takes time to visit and engage with the art rock garden.
A rock garden, with painted rocks, seemed like the perfect solution to bring beauty and kindness to her beloved tree, which she has dubbed “The Kindness Tree.”
Arcuri’s sister and a friend, Vicky and Peg, showed up one Saturday with gravel, shovels and rakes to help her clean out the dirt and start the foundation of the rock garden.
With creative arts and crafts skills in her wheelhouse, Arcuri was no stranger to painting rocks for family and friends. She got to work by “mod-podge-ing”, painting and spraying a protective layer on the inaugural rocks for the garden. Rainbows, hearts and positive affirmations were among the first “plantings” under the Kindness Tree.
She wanted the garden to be beautiful and inspirational and the Connection Center was the ideal location.
For 20 years, Arcuri has found a community at the Connection Center, where people with shared mental and physical health and/or substance use disorder struggles work together to achieve their full potential.
Though Arcuri started the garden, many friends and colleagues at the Connection Center have hopped on board as willing and eager participants. Painting rocks is a frequent arts and crafts activity for members. There is a table is set up inside the center with rocks and the art materials available to add some colors and positive messages to rocks for the garden.
Beth Martin and Stacie Taper are two of Arcuri’s friends who love the idea and are genuinely proud of Arcuri’s accomplishments to date.
“It’s very uplifting to see the rocks and their beautiful artwork and messages,” Martin said.
“People enjoy painting the rocks since the table is always set up at the Connection Center,” Taper said.
“The rock garden is one way to express our love and desire to be helpful to others and a way to contribute,” Arcuri said.
The various-sized rocks are a beautiful tapestry of colors, but her hope is for the space to become a community garden, where passersby feel compelled to take a rock that “speaks to them” or to leave their own painted rock for someone else to discover.
The interactive garden—like the signs say: Take a rock. Leave a rock.—incorporates many people’s ideas, Martin said. “One person making all the rocks wouldn’t be as fun as 20 people who share different ideas and different mindsets. It’s so cool because it’s interactive.”
“I’m not confident in my art ability, but I can color,” Taper said. She left a rock that she painted with something important to her—the “I Love You” symbol in American Sign Language, which she teaches at the center. “Someone took it because they must have known what it was.”
“Someone took your rocks because they needed that message. Somebody was touched by that,” Arcuri assured her. “People will take art they think makes them feel good. That’s what they are there for.”
Since the garden was started in June, there have been some obvious additions, she reported. Someone tucked a dollar bill under one of the rocks, “which just wowed me” and someone else left two rocks that looked like embossed coins from “Pirates of the Caribbean.”
“Cathi is such a beautiful artist. Her rocks have beautiful patterns, flowers and loving symbols,” said Martin. “She is full of Jesus and the spirit, and wants to share that with others.”
Adding the rock garden beneath the tree “complimented the tree and gave it roots in loving kindness,” Martin said.
“When I came to Bowling Green, I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t know how to deal with my emotions, but I’ve gotten so much from everyone at the Connection Center,” Arcuri said. “It gives me a place to contribute, and in return, I get back so much support, kindness and friendship.”
It’s all about planting seeds, even if the seeds are rocks.
