By Ryan Berry

DailyAdvocate.com

GREENVILLE — The Darke County Parks held a special Family Art Day at Bear’s Mill on Saturday and welcomed special guests Tina Husted and her husband, Lt. Governor Jon Husted. Tina has been a tremendous supporter of the arts and has served on the Ohio Arts Council. She has visited Darke County several times to show her support for visual arts and as a special guest of the Darke County Center for the Arts to announce the performing arts schedule.

Family Art Day at Bear’s Mill gave families an opportunity to discover different types of visual arts, including flower pounding, plein air painting, pottery demonstrations, leaf rubbing and tours of the mill.

Robb Clifford, director of Darke County Parks, opened the event by welcoming the Husteds and gave a brief history on the mill and its 175th anniversary. The Parks acquired the Mill in 2021.

Jennifer Overholser, director of Visual Arts for Darke County Center for the Arts, spoke about bringing the visual arts to the forefront and the strides Darke County has been making through the Art Trail. Over the past couple of years, the trail has expanded with the addition of the Tecumseh and Jim Buchy statues at Shawnee Prairie and along the bike trail near Prairie Ridge Meadow, as well as a bear sculpture and butterfly sculpture at Bear’s Mill and Bish Discovery Center.

Tina Husted is a strong supporter of the arts. As an artist, she has a goal of creating paintings of all 88 counties in Ohio. She is a little more than halfway through her goal. One of her most recent projects was creating a painting for Darke County.

Tina praised the late Darryl Mehaffie for his influence on the arts in the county. She pointed out he was a big cheerleader for Darke County. She said, “It’s a beautiful day, the sun’s coming out. Darryl is with us. For all of those that knew Darryl Mehaffie. I had the privilege of sitting on the Ohio Arts Council with Darryl. He was always telling me how much he loved Jon (Husted). Darryl just talked and talked about how much he loved Darke County and how much he wanted us to come to Darke County.”

Mehaffie assisted Tina with finding the right scene to paint. She said he sent her several photographs and gave her some ideas. For some reason, the Bear’s Mill kept coming back to me,” she said. One of the last times she talked to Mehaffie, he made a special call to see if she had finished the painting. She had not at the time, but she did finish it prior to him passing earlier this year. “I’m so thankful, I thank God that I did it because we lost him, but I had it done before he went on. In my view it was a God wink that we were able to get it done.”

Her piece is titled Darke History and features Bear’s Mill. Prints of the artwork are available at the Mill.

The idea for capturing all 88 counties on canvas came after she did a painting for Governor Mike and Fran DeWine of their home in Greene County. She said she had already completed about 12-14 other paintings of areas throughout Ohio and wanted to do more. “As we start to travel the state more as Jon’s kind of preparing to run for governor, I was thinking, well, it would be fun to do something in every county and try to bring attention to the arts. It’s such a great way to bring people together. Most people love art on some level and people may not realize they love art. You know, because it comes in different forms. I thought it would a fun way to kind of shine the light on some beauty in Ohio. Every county is a little unique,” she said.

The lieutenant governor clarified Tina’s comment about running for governor. He said, “She used the keyword preparing. We’ll talk more about that after this election is over – early next year.”

She continued, “It’s just really fun to talk about the arts, to celebrate the arts, people to come together through the arts. It’s important. It’s one of the best things we can do as a civic group, as a civic activity to love the parks, to love the arts and to share them together.”

Jon added, “There’s something in all 88 counties that people are proud of. They’re proud of their county, they’re proud of their community and Tina has brought a lot of that to light through her art.” He also marveled at the Mill. “Think about this place. In the mid-1800s this was innovative. This was an economic engine because it helped people create more value for their crops. This was kind of like a state-of-the-art economic development project in the mid-1800s. Now, we have farmers in this area that take it (their crops) to the giant Cargill facilities.”

Jon doted on his wife, “I see Tina’s art and I see things that have historic value. It’s educational because it helps you understand, if you really think about it, how things were in the mid-1800s. Think how special this was.”

To contact Daily Advocate Editor Ryan Berry, email [email protected].