Quad City Arts Partners With KWQC to Feature Local Artists

Quad City Arts is excited about a new partnership with KWQC-TV6, to provide exposure for area artists to create logos for their new weekly show, as well as the opportunity to feature local artists – the segment is called “Quad Cities Live.”

Airing Fridays from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., QC Live invites area artists to submit their work, particularly to create new versions of the show’s logo. The NBC affiliate is working with Quad City Arts to recommend artists of any age, who can also have their work featured and be personally interviewed on the air.

Bettendorf native Brian Buckles (who now lives in Waterloo, Iowa), adapted a stunning shark painting of his for the logo and was featured on the show on March 19.

“It was really a great representation of his work and the QC Live logo,” says Kevin Maynard, Quad City Arts’ executive director. “KWQC reached out to us. Part of the focus of QC Live is what’s going on in the arts and our community.”

Quad City Arts contacted Buckles, since his work is in the current exhibit at the Art at the Airport gallery (through April 28), in the Quad City International Airport, Moline.

“We knew that outside of Brian’s artwork, he’s also a graphic designer, so he’d be a great fit with quality work and a quick turnaround,” Maynard says.

There is an open call on our website for any artist to submit their version of the QC Live logo, and KWQC plans to feature a different one each month.

“Obviously it showcases our artists’ work,” Maynard says. “It gives them the opportunity to get their work out there; it gives them an opportunity to talk about themselves. And for us, in addition to working with KWQC, we get to encourage people to come to our galleries, here and the Quad City International Airport, and let people know there are lot of really creative people in our region.

“We’re going to encourage our Metro Arts apprentices to create a logo as well,” he says. “This is kind of a fun opportunity to highlight especially young creatives and encourage the next generation of artists in the Quad-Cities.”

“How cool for a young artist to see their work on TV like that?”

​The mission of Quad Cities Live
QC Live – co-hosted by Morgan Ottier and Jake Eastburn – launched last month, and features things to do over the weekend in the area, and also is dedicated to local nonprofits.

“Because we saw through the pandemic, the support that nonprofits needed, in our community to help serve others,” says Stephanie Hedrick, KWQC news director. “It just made sense to create, like everything we created about the show needed to belong, to show support for the community here.”

“We were talking about, why don't we just, when we're coming up with graphics and the look of the show, why don't we just make that an ever-changing element and something that would be a platform for local artists,” she says. “That would be another way to show support for the community.”

They borrowed the idea from Google as well, which switches the logo on its home page often, and QC Live wanted to try that, Hedrick says.

The first person they used for a new logo was LaToya D. Lewis -- an art teacher at Lincoln Resource Center in Davenport -- in honor of Black History Month in February.

“She said, this is great for high school students and other young artists,” Hedrick says. “Quad City Arts was great; they wanted to meet and help coordinate those artists for us.”

The show will also highlight those artists on air, though Lewis didn’t want to be interviewed.

“But she provided as a beautiful statement to explain how she came up with the idea,” Hedrick says. “She made a version of it for Quad Cities Live, but it also said Black Lives Matter at the bottom of it. And so we made sure to show that as well to explain where the inspiration came from.”
 
“We hope to not just feature the artist’s work through this logo, but work they’ve done so far,” Hedrick says.
 
KWQC has had a natural connection with Quad City Arts with the annual Festival of Trees, and she reached out to Alex Salaverria to get suggestions for other artists to design a logo.
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Great outlet for artists
“I think it's such a cool idea,” Buckles (who was interviewed remotely for QC Live) says. “It’s obviously a great new platform to give artists of exposure. And, with Quad City Arts and what they're doing in the Quad-Cities, they've been doing it for a long, long time now, but it's just been really cool to see just the different ways and opportunities that they open up for artists to just kind of showcase what they can do and what they're passionate about. And I think that that obviously  makes for a more lively culture in the Quad-Cities.”
 
Featuring new logos is a positive reflection of the variety of art and artists who are in the Quad-Cities.
“Sometimes I think that the Quad-Cities kind of has -- I don't want to say an underground art culture, but you know, maybe one that doesn't get as much recognition as it deserves,” Buckles says. “Allowing the logo to kind of change once a month to reflect someone else's art is a pretty cool idea and concept.”

A 2002 Bettendorf High alum, with a graphic design degree from Iowa State’s College of Design, Buckles adapted one of his paintings that he had done of a tiger shark in the Bahamas for his KWQC logo.
“I have a graphic design background. That's my degree and so I just tried to have a little bit of fun with it -- marrying the imagery with the typography and having the shark swimming through the Q,” he says.
 
“I thought it would be kind of a fun concept and give it some depth, and try to make it a little bit of an expression of who I am and what I'm about. I’m so appreciative of Quad City Arts and KWQC for that opportunity. It's been a fun, fun process.”
 
If you are an artist who wants to submit work and an updated logo, you can send images and logo inquiries to our website: www.quadcityarts.com/opportunities or apply directly: www.quadcityarts.com/qclive.
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To see Brian Buckles’ segment, visit https://www.kwqc.com/2021/03/22/qc-artist-brian-buckles/. For other past episodes, visit https://www.kwqc.com/quadcitieslive/.
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