When it comes to art for Jeanne Moore and Susan Krause, chair and co-chair of the Port Jervis Arts Walk, they like to keep it all in the family.

“I first attended the arts walk about seven years ago...and I thought it was a really nice event and had a lot of potential,” says Moore about her involvement with the event. “And I knew the woman who was in charge of it, who I had met a few years before that, so I got to talking to her one day and I volunteered. So I joined a committee, and now it's seven years later. Dorothy Solomon, who founded the arts walk, passed away two years ago, and I took over from her the year before she died.”

Moore is the show's best cheerleader, saying, “Every year the show has gotten bigger and better. Every year. Every single year it's the best show ever, which means we improve every year.” Herself a fabric artist, Moore is able to take any picture you give her, like one of your house, for instance, and reproduce it on fabric to scale. “I can't draw, but I can do things with fabric,” she jokes.

This talent has managed to find its way to her grandson, Adam, second and middle son to daughter Kim Schoch, who has been home-schooled up until this year, now beginning eighth grade. Kim is “very talented, but never really pursued her art.” She made sure to encourage such pursuits in Adam, who started taking oil painting lessons with Moore's good friend, Rusty Coehlo, whose painting classes mainly consisted of retirees and senior citizens, and who didn't make a habit of teaching kids.

“Nobody was really interested in teaching Adam...because of his age,” says mother, Kim. “I guess at that age they don't take it as seriously as, say, a high school student.” Undeterred, Adam and his mom visited Rusty's class.

“We brought the drawings that he had done so far with us and Rusty looks at the top one and says, “oh yeah, he definitely can stay,” recalls Kim. “He put a paintbrush in his hand, and that was it, he started oil painting that day. That was last summer, and each painting gets tremendously better. He's just amazing me, he's amazing Rusty. He's just naturally good. Rusty says he doesn't really need much teaching, he just sort of knows what to do.”

Adam is not a talkative 13-year-old, but he's to the point. When asked what he likes most about the process of making art, his answer is simple: “Just looking at it in the end to see what it looks like, I just enjoy it. It's fun.” Despite his modesty, he's already had work commissioned by his aunt and uncle, and was accepted into his home-school group's high school level fine art class. Since ending his home-school experience, Adam hasn't found much time to continue painting, unable to continue attending Coehlo's painting workshops because of his change to regular school. Adam is still thinking about pursuing art as a career, but right now, he's filling up the time playing football with his friends and shooting his bow and arrow...definitely a teenage Jack-of-all-trades. Kim initially thought she would participate in class with her son, but decided against it, wanting Adam to have something he could call all his own. Even still, Schoch stays connected with her son through their mutual art-connection - no easy feat for a mother of a thirteen-year-old.

“There's not too many areas where we have that connection, so it's kinda nice that we do with this,” says Schoch with a laugh.

Susan Krause, Jeanne Moore's colleague and co-chair of the Port Jervis Arts Walk, has a similarly artistic relationship with her own son, Kenny.

“I started to get interested in art when my son Kenny was just a couple years old,” says Krause. “He expressed a kind of natural talent for art when he was very young. He started to draw when he was just around two. And in trying to give him different media to work with and explore with drawing and painting and whatnot, I started to do it myself. I realized that I had a natural talent that had really never come out to its fullest. The two of us just worked with different art forms, and we both just developed our talent along the way. He's the natural artist; I always tell people I have to work at it. Kenny makes it look easy.”

Nineteen-year old Kenny draws, paints, and takes photos, his subject matter ranging from people, landscapes, vehicles...you name it. Currently enrolled at Orange County Community College, Kenny is taking a course in Vis-Comm, or Visual Communications, which he says “is basically computer graphics,” as well as a drawing and painting class. As to whether or not art will play a role as a career in his plans for the future, Kenny's outlook is positive, if still a little indefinite.

“Graphic design interests me,” he says. “I know computers are where the money is at, but I also prefer to use my hands to draw and paint, so it's kinda hard to say...definitely graphic artist or designer - one of the two.”

“We kinda bounce things off each other and we advise each other when we're doing different pieces,” says Krause about her artistic relationship with her son. The two learn from each other as they make their own art - though Krause believes the exchange is maybe a bit one-sided. “It's more me looking for his advice than him looking for mine,” she laughs.

The Krauses believe that their shared love of art is a boon to their familial life, and that all families could benefit likewise by fostering creativity in young men as they grow up. “We started doing artwork together when he was two years old,” says Krause. “He's kind of grown up with mom being involved in his creative development. We're very close, and I think that has quite a bit to do with it, our mutual interest and our love of art.”

Jeanne Moore agrees about the advantages of nurturing an interest in art from an early age. “I think it's a huge loss to those boys who don't have their creativity encouraged, who aren't told to go for it...I think you just have to encourage everybody to develop whatever creativity they have.”

Kim Schoch feels the same way about her son's art education saying, “he enjoys it so much. He could just sit and paint all day, and the most positive thing about that is, a kid at his age, that's a rare thing...I know, for me, when you enjoy art, it's just a peaceful thing. So I just think it's just good down-time for him to be creative, and enjoy it as much as he does.”

Some of Adam’s art is included with this article, as is Kenny Krause's. For more of Kenny's art, check out his online portfolio: *www.jimcherrypix.com/KKrause/Home.html, which is housed on his brother-in-law's (uncle's) photography web-site.

That's right, Uncle Jim is an artist too…talk about keeping it all in the family...

*Kenny now has a web-site of his own. You can check it out at www.kennykrause.com