Local Artists Showcased at City Hall

Benny Westcott

Sweet Home residents had the opportunity to look at art from local talent Aliyah Weaver and hear piano music played by Luke Rice at an art reception for Weaver’s work at City Hall on Thursday, July 20.

Weaver’s collection, titled “An Introduction To Me,” features a number of her paintings of fantastical imagery adorning the walls of City Hall’s lobby area. She is one of many local artists whose work has been featured in City Hall thanks to the cooperative efforts of the city and the Sweet Home Coalition for Artistic and Scholastic Enrichment.

Weaver has been drawing since she was 3, starting with her painting a whale in the ocean.

“I try to dabble in a lot of stuff,” she said. “But I most enjoyed drawing characters for the longest time, and I tried to expand and draw more perspective and landscape drawing, and more animals. But I definitely had fun drawing characters and making stories for them.”

Now, she says “I’m just trying to learn and expand on different things.”

She credits Youtube videos and consistent work for improving her craft. “I never really took a lot of lessons, and when I did it didn’t last long.”

She said her dad always encouraged her to do art and gave her tips and advice when she needed it.

Just 22, Weaver has lived in a lot of places in her young life. Born in Arizona, she also lived in Tennessee, Texas, and Seattle, moving around as her dad changed places of work in the IT profession.

Homeschooled her whole childhood, Weaver graduated in 2019 in Knoxville, Tenn. She then attended Pellissippi State Community College in Knoxville for two years before having to drop out with one semester left “due to some circumstances with COVID and everything.”

She moved to Sweet Home last year since her fiancé is from there, and two months ago began working as a server at Osaka Sushi.

Weaver singled out three of her favorite pieces at the exhibit to talk to The New Era about.

She said that “Koi Dragon,” which depicts the figure from Chinese mythology, was “pretty relaxing to paint.”

“I like drawing the old Japanese style dragons,” she said. “It was kind of relaxing putting the movements together and painting it.”

Pointing to another piece, titled “Ghost at the Watermill,” which depicts four spirits surrounding a bustling water mill in a wooded area, she explained. “I just looked at an old water mill music box thing that we had in our house, and wanted to paint something fun with it.

“The process came slowly, and I added ghost fun.”

Weaver also singled out “Maiden of the Sea,” a female figure whose long blue hair calls to mind the ocean’s water.

“It was a lot of relaxing processes to do and it was fun,” she said of the painting.

The maiden theme is further embodied in other pieces in the exhibit, including “Maiden of the Sky”, “Maiden of Water”, “Maiden of Lava”, “Maiden of the Earth”, and “The Maidens of Day and Night.”

Overall, when people view her work at the exhibit, Weaver says “I hope that they find it fun and entertaining and it brings joy to their life.”

The backdrop to the reception was the silky sounds of the keyboard played by Sweet Home resident Luke Rice.

He moved to Sweet Home four months ago, citing the reason of “family,” and says “I love it here.”

In addition to piano, he plays guitar, bass and drums.

He started piano when he was five. “I hated it because my parents made me do classic,” he said. “And then I was like, you know what, I want to do the drums, and I started drums and guitar. And then I started recording and doing my own music.”

When asked what he currently likes to play, he said “Alternative rock is what people would call it generally, and I like to just throw my own spin on things.”

He enjoys playing music he’s written himself the most, and even when he does covers he doesn’t like for them to be copies of the originals.

“If it’s a cover, it has to be mine,” he said. “So I have to change it. So I have to hear a song I really like and then either try to make it completely different, or what I would think is different from the artist’s.”

Rice has done a couple shows at Shoppe of Wonders on Sweet Home’s Main Street.

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