The Shreveport Convention Center was filled with 95,000 square feet visual, literary, performing, culinary, fashion, lighting design, and film art for ARTBREAK 2023 – now in its 37th year! ARTBREAK showcases the arts programs and artistic achievements of students in Caddo Parish and other regional schools with a free weeklong celebration and weekend festival. 

More than 50,000 students, parents, teachers, and weekend festival goers celebrated the achievements of Caddo Parish Students during the largest student arts festival in the south. Award-winning student creations collected more than $20,000 in savings bonds and cash prizes, and two students from each school were offered a deep dive into several arts disciplines through master classes taught by expert artists.

ARTBREAK welcomed 2nd and 3rd graders to enjoy more than 50 hands-on, make-and-take S.T.E.A.M. learning activities under the guidance of professional artists. 

There were school and community performances. Nationally renowned children’s entertainer based in Washington, DC, Uncle Devin, known as “The Children’s Drumcussionist,” also performed and KTAL-6 ARTBREAK’s Got Talent Show returned. The Los Angeles Dance sensation, Straight Up Abilities, was there showcasing the talents of children and adults with intellectual or physical disabilities. 

ARTBREAK 37 had several new additions:

• The Shreve Memorial Library performed a “Pete the Cat: Rockin’ in My School Shoes” play and hosted a Book Walk in the style of a cake walk.
• Professional artist James Marks invited attendees to help him sculpt a life-size metal figure named Oscar Joseph, with colorful wire and pipe cleaners that will be showcased at SRAC’s ArtStation.
• The Louisiana Division of the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Poetry Foundation presented Poetry Out Loud, a dynamic recitation competition for high school students.
• New Community Partners including the American Society for Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the Louisiana Engineering Society (LES), the Noel Community Art Center, the Red River Revel Arts Festival, the Renzi Center, Robinson Film Center, Sanctuary Glass Studio, and SciPort Discovery Center invited ARTBREAK attendees to create art with them.

 ARTBREAK is produced by the Shreveport Regional Arts Council and Caddo Parish Public Schools and made possible by the generosity of grantors and community and business sponsors.

That first garage sale brought in enough money to pay the month’s rent. Soon the garage sales became a weekly event. They kept growing, Johnston said, until they turned into the Christ Fit Thrift Store, behind the gym.

“The thrift store is one of our biggest blessings,” she said. “It has been able to provide so much.”

Billy’s brother, Bernie, has been there from the beginning, helping put in the floors and set up the equipment. But the gym wasn’t making money in those earlier days, so Bernie worked in oil and gas for seven years — “a horrible lifestyle,” he said.

“I came back home, got my life right with the Lord, and started working here full time,” Bernie said. “This gym saved my life, 100 percent.”

Bernie works with the moving and recycling arms of the operation. Those operations, along with the thrift store, help keep the gym operating on a donation basis.

Even Billy’s mother, Janet Weatherall, plays a role in the operations.

“Ever since the gym was opened, Billy has always given me a place here at the gym” she said. “Billy has been so obedient. I look at his life, and God has just blessed him.”

Christ Fit’s growing portfolio of businesses and services provides more than just a place to work out. To many, it provides an opportunity.

“Christ Fit Gym is not just a gym,” Johnston said. “We have all the special needs students work here during the day. This whole facility offers second-chance employment. We strongly believe in that. We think, if somebody doesn’t give them a chance, why won’t they go back to their old ways? It’s our job to plant the seed. If you come here, it’s gonna get planted. And if you come here enough, it’s gonna get watered, too. That’s the goal of it.” 

“It doesn’t matter your past,” Billy said. “We are willing to give anyone a chance. We all have pretty bad backgrounds. We’ve made some mistakes. We’ve lived life. I’ve lived life to the fullest for the world, and I’ve lived life to the fullest for the Lord. It’s not even comparable.”

While each family member has a specialty in the operation, they all pitch in anywhere they are needed. Billy and Julie both have helped on moving jobs, and Janet has been known to help with the packing.

“If we’re all not in it, I don’t want to do it,” Julie said. “This is such a beautiful thing we have here with our family.”

As the operations continue to grow, the family remains committed to God, to each other and to every person who walks through their doors.

To Julie, it’s about being the church to people who might not go to a church building.

“I love that this place is open for everyone,” she said. “A lot of people aren’t going to go to a church building. But they feel very welcome here. It’s a come as you are kind of thing because none of us is perfect.”

For Bernie, the excitement is in seeing how God always shows up.

“I see God’s favor daily,” he said. “I see miracles weekly. It’s unbelievable. God’s favor is all over this. Truly blessed.”

And for Janet, it’s simply a labor of love.

“This gym is absolutely unconditional love,” she said. “People come as they are, and it’s always just been a warm, welcoming place. I’m just so proud of my children. I learn from them every day. They are my inspiration.”

For Billy, it all goes back to Christ Fit’s mission statement, found in 1 Timothy 4:18.

“Physical training is important, but it’s not the most important,” he said. “It’s knowing the Lord. When you know the Lord, it has eternal ramifications. It’s for here, and it’s for the future.”

The family of Andrés Sánchez Flores moved to Shreveport in 1955. Sánchez Flores also had great strength as an artist, painting some 34 known art works that include sketches, drawings, paintings, five murals, and one fresco. Several of the works reflect insights gained from studies of Pre-Columbian culture that enabled him to express accurately the aspects of the culture both artistically and scientifically. From his research, he depicted their life – how they treated one another, strangers and how they interacted with nature.

In the 1950’s, he completed his first original work in the U.S., the 16-foot oil painting shown at Jackson Hall at Centenary College, and the pre-historic mural Oil Trade in Louisiana Before the White Man. He and Shreveport artist Amos Lee Armstrong, first Art Director of LSEM (Louisiana State Exhibit Museum) together painted the historic mural 412 Years of Bossier History commissioned by the National Bank of Bossier.

An Opening Reception open to the public will be held on Thursday, May 4 from 4:30–7:00 pm. with light refreshments provided by Gabriel Banderas, owner of Zuzul Coastal Cuisine, with Friends of the Museum. Music and dance will be performed in traditional costume by the Folkloriko Group Orgullo de Mexico. Lupita Soto Torres, coordinator for adult education students, Bossier Parish Community College Coordinator, will lead the dance troupe. The artist’s family encourage visitors to wear attire to celebrate a great artist and the Cinco de Mayo spirit!

Janet became a member of the Portrait Society of America. Formed in 1998 as an educational organization, the Portrait Society of America is dedicated to furthering the traditions of fine art portraiture and figurative art through programs and publications. According to their website, members can access technical information, delve into traditional aesthetics, and research the history of figurative art and portraiture. Among other enrichment activities, this organization recognizes and honors artists of distinction who “have over the course of their careers produced bodies of work that epitomizes excellence within the discipline.”

 It was through this organization and the encouragement of her mentor, Kathy Morris, that Janet entered an annual competition. Both of her entries made it to the semi-finals with one of those portraits being featured in a national art magazine. They will also be on display at Sotheby’s in New York City. This is quite an accomplishment in anyone’s book.

 Perhaps dearer to her heart is Janet’s involvement with a non-profit organization started by Brent Anderson. “In My Father’s Eyes Portraits” works with families of children who have been diagnosed with cancer to provide them with beautiful portraits of their children. Anderson enlists the help of artists willing to donate their talent for this worthy cause. “The feeling of love between the artist and the recipient is beyond words,” Janet claims. Anderson has the portrait framed and sent to these families free of charge and wrapped in compassion.

 How’s that for a creative spark from a Facebook post? Thank you, Jim Huckabee.

 If you would like to see more of Janet’s work, check out her portfolio on Instagram @janetmainesartist.  She also has a Facebook presence (of course) and a website: janetmaines.com.

Purple Side, Oil and Flashe on Canvas, 48 x 48 inches, © 2022 Ellen Soffer

McDade goes on to describe Soffer’s work as intuitive, while also being very analytical. “When I look at her paintings, while they have a sense of spontaneity and freedom within them, I can tell that nothing is haphazard— very brush stroke and color combination is strategic. I see her work as an invitation for critical thinking and individual emotion,” says McDade.

Soffer creates on canvas and paper using mainly oils, but also gouache, acrylic, and watercolor. She has had solo exhibitions in Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Texas, and Georgia and has been featured in group exhibitions including Mary Tomás Gallery in Dallas and the Longview Museum of Fine Arts, among many other venues. She is a recipient of the Shreveport Regional Arts Council’s Visual Arts Fellowship and has been awarded residencies from the Ragsdale Foundation and Skowhegan. Soffer earned her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her BFA from the Philadelphia College of Art.

Robert L. Pincus, who has been an art critic, author, book critic, and art historian for more than four decades and was the staff art critic of The San Diego Union Tribune for 25 years has contributed an essay to a full color catalog available in conjunction with Soffer’s exhibition. Pincus says, “I have admired Ellen Soffer’s paintings for a decade now, so it was a real pleasure and a lovely challenge to write an essay on her recent work. The paintings in this exhibition and catalog are teeming with exuberant color, formal ingenuity, and subtle symbolism.”

When asked what she hopes to convey to those seeing the Pink Sky artspace exhibition, Soffer says, “I am happy to share a large body of my work together. I invite viewers to engage with and to interpret my paintings in their own way.”