Fine artists, entertainment and food will descend upon Tooele City Park beginning Friday for the 24th annual Tooele Arts Festival. It may be one of only a few times during the year where patrons — and artists alike — can peruse through a sea of white tents looking to find a piece of fine artwork, ranging from crocheted doll dresses to concrete sculptures to mixed media found objects.
While the Tooele Arts Festival has been a staple summer tradition in the county since 1985, it brings thousands of people to view artists from Tooele County, all over Utah and several surrounding states.
“Locals, we like to focus on them,” said the festival’s co-adviser Susan Cummings. “Years ago it was out tradition to highlight our local artists. And we still do. But we get as many from out of the area. That helps our economy with those visitors’ tax dollars that goes back in to support the event.”
This year, 70 artists will be displaying and selling their artwork. Twenty-three of them come from Tooele County. However, the festival isn’t solely about art.
Nearly 20 food vendors selling everything from funnel cake to traditional hot dogs and hamburgers to German and Mexican food made by St. Marguerite’s Church, will be on hand to keep patrons’ stomachs full. Additionally, entertainment on both the main stage and near the Children’s Art Yard will provide singing and dancing for those in attendance.
There isn’t necessarily a headlining act this year, but Cummings says probably David Osmond — the fourth son of Alan Osmond, the oldest of the performing Osmond brothers — is the act most may want to see on Saturday night. Eight more performing artists including country western singers, local rock band State of Mind and the Salt Lake Scots will be on hand.
“[Osmond] is a recognizable name for Utahns,” Cummings said. “People who’ve recently moved to the area say, ‘Yeah, I know that name.’ I believe it’s going to be a fairly good concert for us.”
The festival is free and runs Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
“The media is focusing on ‘staycations,’” Cummings said. “That’s why we’ve been so fortunate to have support with vendors; they aren’t taking the risk of traveling any further… people stay closer to home. People know they’ll get a lot of entertainment by staying home [this] weekend. We’re anticipating a good crowd. I’m hoping that people support these artists.”
Because the Tooele Arts Festival is about showcasing artists, festival organizers told the Transcript-Bulletin about a few of them who will be selling interesting artwork or who are simply going to show off what they do.
Matthew Barker — Toilet paper sculptures
Although Tooele resident Matthew Barker won’t be selling anything at the festival this year, the organizers were so impressed with what he creates — sculptures made from wire, glue and toilet paper — that they invited him to the festival just to show patrons what he does.
“We had no idea about his work until his sister brought a sample of it,” said the festival’s visual arts inspector Cheryl Smith. “His work is so unique and so good, he just did this on his own and for himself, but we wanted to highlight him because it is so unique.”
Barker manipulates clothes hangers to create wire figures into shapes like a bird, elk or anything else he’s trying to sculpt. He then mixes toilet paper with Elmer’s glue and stirs it up until it looks like ice cream. With his fingers, Barker twirls it until it turns to putty and then begins to form that around the wire.
“I keep forming them and forming them until they’re all done,” Barker said.
He also makes his own carving tools to help bend and make the artwork, thus creating everything from hand.
Barker doesn’t limit himself to just birds and elk; he’s made horses, dogs, dragons, skeletons, frogs and brown trout for people who’ve wanted them. He uses about one roll of toilet paper for each of the sculptures. An eagle takes about a month and two weeks for an elk.
“Everybody tells me to pour molds,” he said, “but I don’t want to do it like that. I want to sculpt it and make it all handmade. All of my stuff is handmade. I even put the feathers on the eagles one at a time.”
His unique sculpting led Barker to try his hand at painting. He’s painted country singer Alan Jackson and done some religious projects as well.
But Barker isn’t in the art world to make money. He does it for his own personal gratification. However, one time he had to sell his sculptures to pay for his dachshund, Edith, to have surgery and pay for her medicine.
“I didn’t want to have them put her down,” he said. “I’ve had her since she was a little puppy.”
So to keep Edith he made three sculptures —a big eagle and wolf, an eagle and a brown trout — and sold them.
“All that money went to pay for the surgery,” he said.
Even though Barker won’t be selling anything at the festival because it takes so long to create his sculptures, he will show interested festival-goers what he does.
“I’ve always liked being an art person since I was a little kid,” Barker said. “I got in trouble once because I got crayons and colored in pictures in encyclopedias.”
Fiona V. Kahlo — Mixed media found art
Grantsville High School art teacher and Tooele resident Fiona V. Kahlo doesn’t have an exact term to define what she does, but the best description is mixed media found art — or collage.
“For instance, the piece I’m working on right now,” she said, “I’ve got a box and I’m putting in little things I have either bought from thrift stores or taking used things and altering and manipulating them with paper techniques or image transfers and then creating a scene within the box.”
Kahlo also alters wind chimes using picture frames and little trinket boxes. Surprisingly, she works with two very different objects: rusted metal and dolls.
“The dolls I [work with] have been discarded in yard sales or thrift stores. People know I like dolls and give them to me,” she said. “I take them apart and put them back together so I can call that work my work.”
Some of the dolls she worked on last year dealt with body image. She takes the dolls, wraps them in different colored tape, and attaches them to canvas.
“I love it,” she said, “it’s definitely more sculptural.”
Kahlo received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Utah with an art teaching emphasis in ceramics. When she first began teaching at GHS five years ago, she mainly taught pottery, but also had a 3-D design class. After attending a conference in St. George that featured an artist doing altered artwork, Kahlo switched her focus to mixed media found art.
“I still love clay, but as far as expressing myself as an artist, I found it’s easier to do,” she said. “It comes naturally to me. A lot of the art that I make, a lot of it has a metaphor behind it, a lot of symbolism. I think that’s why I do a lot of work with dolls. I use the dolls to symbolize an event or a feeling or something that’s happened to me.”
At the beginning of each semester when a new class she’s teaching starts, she wants her students to think about what’s going on in the world right now. She tells them to see things in different way and reuse, alter or create something from a piece of trash or junk.
“I say, ‘Hey, let’s recycle and reuse,’” she said. “Our world is getting to the point where we need to recycle and reuse. You want to break [something] and reuse it as something else, great. That’s a driving force in my work.”
Kahlo was an artist at the Tooele and Bountiful arts festivals last year and is planning to be at the Bountiful festival again in August.
“What was really great about last year, a lot of the pieces I make have a personal story behind them and the interaction I had with individuals coming to my booth, even if they didn’t buy a thing, just talking to them and getting their feedback and telling my stories was awesome,” she said. “There was a guy who had a photography booth next to mine and he said that not every piece [of artwork] is for everybody so you might not sell something. But, if a person comes up and sees a piece and they love it, it doesn’t matter how much it is, they’ll want to buy it. Talking to some of those seasoned veterans inspired me to do the arts festival again this summer.”
Tammy McCrone — Crochet
As a self-taught crocheter, Tooele resident Tammy McCrone will have a multitude of items to sell and put on display at the arts festival. However, her bread and butter is christening dresses.
Although she starts out with a basic pattern, McCrone never finishes it that way. She works on basic dresses and triple tier ones with lots of lace.
“There are really difficult and easy stitches [in crocheting],” she said. “I like to go for the more challenging things. I do yarn crochet but I prefer to do thread crochet, real intricate doilies and christening dresses.”
McCrone taught herself how to crochet and sew after she broke her back in 1984 and was paralyzed in a hospital bed.
“I knew nothing about crochet,” she said. “I got a book and started to experiment and it just went from there. I’ve been doing it ever since. Everything I know is self-taught.”
Additionally, McCrone will be selling decorated flip flops, baby and adult clothes, tie-dye items and 5-inch dolls for which she’s made the clothes.
“The clothes are a pain, but they’re real cute,” she added.
Because christening dresses take anywhere from a week to three weeks to make depending on its intricacies, McCrone will take orders for dresses and will be working on other projects during the festival. She lost the last two weeks because she was sick and is hoping to catch up with some of the work so she has enough products to sell.
“I do something different with each dress,” McCrone said. “I never made the same dress and change it with each personality.”
Missy Thompson: missy@tooeletranscript.com
Post a Comment
