Uniting through art

Narrows resident Chris Cruz is hoping to start a movement. She’s encouraging people, mainly women, to give time back to themselves.

And she’s doing it through painting.

“The painting is just a vehicle, but it’s really a vessel to get women together — it’s mostly women — where they can relax and forget about the world for a couple of hours,” said Cruz, who has been painting for 32 years. 

She started painting when her daughter was born after seeing a sign for a painting class. After that first class, however, she was hooked.

“From the first day I went, I realized that was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life,” Cruz said. Friends would ask about her artwork and encouraged her to start teaching others, she said, and she decided to take that leap. Once she started teaching, her perspective on painting changed.

“I started out painting because I got hooked on it,” Cruz said. “But as the years went by and I started teaching, it changed totally. Now, I paint to show a message. It’s for people to get together and accomplish something.”

Part of the satisfaction comes from creating something people feel is difficult, Cruz said. She breaks down the steps of a painting into easy-to-follow instructions, she said, and has never had a student “fail.”

“When [students] first come in, they have this scared look in their face,” Cruz said. “As the class goes by, I see them relax a little more, but the icing on the cake is when they’re done and they look at their project, and they look around and go, ‘Oh my god, mine looks as good as my neighbor’s.’”

Painters also benefit from the time away from the world and its stressors, Cruz said.

“It’s a totally neutral zone; no politics or anything. It’s just time to themselves that women sometimes don’t give themselves,” she said. “Women always do things for everyone else, but not for themselves.”

At the start of class, Cruz has everyone put away their cell phones in order to focus on their painting. Some people are apprehensive at the start, she said, but by the end of class they have forgotten all about checking it.

Cruz started teaching classes when she lived in South Florida, and since moving to the Narrows in 2017, she has started to teach more classes across Shelby County. 

“People are hooked,” Cruz said. “They just want more of it, to the point that I’m now teaching in various places.”

In addition to a monthly class at the Chelsea Community Center and Chelsea Applebee’s, Cruz will teach private classes that are catered toward particular groups, such as garden clubs or book clubs.

Her goal, Cruz said, is to “create a painting movement.” She wants women to have several options for painting classes, so that whenever they need a break or a night to themselves, they can easily go to one. “If they are just feeling sad or happy, they can have a place to go,” she said. “It’s more of a therapy type of activity.”

Cruz has her class the second Tuesday of the month, from 10 a.m.-noon at the Chelsea Community Center. She also teaches the second Saturday of the month at the Shelby Arts Council, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Prices vary by class, but include all materials.