Local company creates eye candy for The Farm

 Creating eye candy for children. That's what a local company is doing. Ad Sign Service of Minden is making giant candy pieces for an upcoming public art project. Seems the local sign company accepted the challenge to create a giant gingerbread house for the upcoming Spring Arts Festival,Chickenstock.

 Cultural Crossroads, sponsors of the annual festival geared for children, offered a challenge to the local company to create a lifesize gingerbread house as a backdrop for this year's theme; “Hansel & Gretel Reimagined.” The 20 year old festival staged at The Moess Center for the Arts & City Farm, will celebrate it's german heritage this year with their interpretation of Grimm's fairtytale. “The story is a little gruesome and we wanted to 'lighten' it up a bit,” comments Chris Broussard with Cultural Crossroads. “Children from Mrs. Mourad's 5th grade class have reimagined the characters as, you guessed it, chickens. ”

Sticking with the principals of recycling and reclaiming set forth by Cultural Crossroads, the local sign company created the majority of their pieces out of their own trash. “We used scraps and cardboard rolls and throw away film to create our candy pieces,” remarks Chancy Valentine. Miss Valentine is a Minden High graduate and past festival art contest winner. Chancy works with a family of creative minds. Her mother Brenda Valentine and father Chuck, also work at Ad Signs. “Everyone in the company got excited about this and we've all worked on the project,” states Teresa Streetman, who also manages the family-owned company.

 Ad Signs will install the giant candy pieces, the icing, the M&M's and the lollipops the week of the festival. The giant gingerbread house will serve as a backdrop for the festival as well as the backdrop for a twenty minute play hosted by Glenbrook's 5th graders. Hansel and Gretel will appear as chickens and other fairytale heroes will help the duo find their home again. Photo ops are encouraged and special cut out elements will help festival goers re imagine themselves as chickens and capture it on film.

Admission to Saturday's festivities is $3 per person and children under 3 admitted free. ChickenStock is being sponsored in part by a grant for the Louisiana Division of the Arts, the La. Office of Culture, Recreation and Tourism and the Shreveport Arts Council. Corporate support to offset the festivals $20,000 budget include the Webster Parish Tourism Commission, Citizen's National Bank, Ad Sign Service, Drs. Scott and Elizabeth Phillips, Harper Motors, Elm Street Dental, and Terry Gardner. Other contributors include The Minute Magazine, Coca Cola Bottling Co, Lyda and James Madden, Cindy and Tommy Walker, Dr. Micheal Chanler, State Farm Laura Horton and Jeanne Martin, and Chief Steve Cropper.

 For more information about Cultural Crossroads or the festival, visit their website at www.artsinminden.com.