About a year ago, local resident Ruby Truax came up with a fun idea to bring the community together in the name of art.
Huntsville Rocks is an online Facebook group of almost 100 people who paint rocks and place them around town for others to find.
The first batch of about 120 rocks were hidden at the end of May 2018, from the Lookout to River Mill Park to Avery Beach and everywhere in between.
Truax got the idea when she went online and saw other communities participating in similar groups.
While she doesn’t have an artistic background, Truax has always loved to paint.
“I’ve done some canvasses and some decorative painting on wood, on cookies tins, things like that, but I’m not an ‘artist’ by any stretch of the imagination. Painting rocks is a lot of fun for me and for a lot of our members because you don’t have to be an artist to do this,” she said.
It is encouraged as a family activity as children are often the ones who like to find the rocks.
“It’s a creative way to have fun with the kids, get them outside and exploring, and encourage them to paint rocks themselves. We don’t actually hide the rocks. We want to make them relatively easy for kids to spot, so we just set them under bushes, on playground equipment, under benches, on store window sills, places like that,” said Truax.
When you find a painted rock, the group hopes you’ll post a photo on its Facebook page, and then either keep the rock or place it somewhere else for another person to find.
Truax says that the majority of rocks found get taken home by kids, which is encouraged, but that leaves a need for more rocks to be painted and placed around town. While the group keeps growing, more painters are needed.
“The reaction to the group has been very positive. We have 92 members who share photos of rocks their kids have found, photos of rocks they or their kids have painted, and ideas and tutorials for painted rocks they’ve seen on the internet,” said Truax. “One member shared a photo of a painted rock she found on a beach when she was a child, wrote how excited she had been to find it and that she still has the rock today, some 30 years later.”
If you want to be part of the fun, click this link to join the Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2142759585943826/
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