SHELBURNE — Mandalas, cartoons and anatomical sketches — these works of art might not be seen together often.
But when the whole community is invited to the Cowell Gymnasium, 51 Maple St., to draw whatever each person wants on paper spanning the entire gym’s floor, such a hodgepodge should be expected.
Saturday was the fourth annual Hilltown Draw-Around, a fundraising event for the afterschool teenage art program, ARTeens.
The “pay what you want, draw what you want” event, which ran from noon to midnight, allowed people of all ages to visit the gym, grab some crayons, pens, markers or paint, and get creative. The entire floor was their canvas.
“For me, the fun part is about collaboration with other artists,” said Laura Iveson, artist and founder of the event.
As Iveson explained the origins of the Hilltown Draw-Around, children whizzed past her to find a still-white piece of floor to draw on. Adults drew elaborate paisley patterns; teenagers drew graffiti and guitars.
“I lived in New Orleans for almost 20 years,” said Iveson, who moved to the area after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. “There was a building that had been emptied out and we had what we called a draw-a-thon. It wasn’t on paper, though. People just drew on the floor.”
Iveson said the Hilltown Draw-Around has given her a chance to reconnect with New Orleans, which has unconventional, rather than uniform, art. The mish-mash of drawings on the floor of the Cowell Gymnasium Saturday brought her back.
“New Orleans is all about ephemeral, whimsical art, and when I came up here, that’s what I missed,” she said.
The drawn-on paper at the event, Iveson said, will be recycled or used as “table cloth” for vendors and artists at different art fairs hosted by the Art Garden. The proceeds, she said, are for a good cause.
The Art Garden, 14 Depot St., hosts the Hilltown Draw-Around’s beneficiary program, ARTeens. According to co-director Phyllis Labanowski, ARTeens gives children and young adults an avenue to explore their creativity — free of judgment — after school.
Teens from Shelburne, Greenfield and the surrounding “hilltowns” participate in a weekly ARTeens group — one meets on Tuesdays, one on Thursdays — during the fall, winter and spring. The pay-what-you-can program, Labanowski said, focuses also on community building, and participants do local public art projects.
“As emerging artists, it’s a path they can take,” Labanowski said. “And they can give back to their community.”
According to Labanowski, the Hilltown Draw-Around not only benefits ARTeens and the Art Garden, but gives people a taste of what the organization is all about: allowing different artists to flourish.
“There are prompts all around this room,” Labanowski said. “For example, a station over there says, ‘draw with no hands.’
“Some people, like me, need suggestions,” Labanowski said. “The prompts are to inspire and to get us to do different things.”
Casey Millane, 17, was one of those artists who went to see and try different things at the event. While he normally likes to draw automobiles as realistically as possible, he brought his younger sister so he could witness her own approach to art.
“She likes to draw flowers, animals,” Casey Millane said of his sister, Makalya, 7. “She will take other people’s art and recreate it.”
Makalya Millane said her favorite drawings were of horses.
“The thing is, I’m allergic to horses,” Makalya Millane said. “But I can still draw them.”
Older artists said they had come to the event for the last few years, and put some thought into what they might draw. Local artist and illustrator Suzanne Conway came to the event to create a mural on one of the walls, which she has done the past three years.
This year, the mural she created depicted dinosaurs — a hallmark of western Massachusetts. Several of the baby dinosaurs were emerging from freshly cracked eggs, just getting their first breath of air. On the eggs were written the names of the Franklin County towns and sponsors that donated to the event.
“The mural is always made into a card and then given to the sponsors,” Conway said.
Buckland, Bernardston, Charlemont, Colrain, Conway, Deerfield, Heath, Leyden, Plainfield, Rowe and Shelburne supported the event, Conway said, as well as large businesses like Home Depot and small, local businesses like Shelburne Coffee Roasters, who donated supplies.
“All of these organizations contributed some way to the event, so we want to give back,” Conway said. “This is about community.”