40 and loving it
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Art on the Green is the Coeur d’Alene community’s own inspired work of art.
The area’s largest art festival brings more than 500 volunteers together to create a dazzling, three-day arts celebration, drawing more than 50,000 attendees.
From Friday through Sunday, artists from across the United States and Canada will display original artworks in 144 exhibition booths. An accompanying Juried Show features work from 63 artists.
Two stages will entertain the crowds all weekend, featuring everything from funky rhythm and bluegrass to the Coeur d’Alene Symphony.
Art on the Green volunteers will prepare and serve all the festival food, offering a variety of choices such as stir-fried veggies and grilled tuna. Profits from the food sales support future festivals.
A children’s art area allows young visitors hands-on art experiences, and a few young artists will have exhibition booths.
The festival opens Friday at noon with a march and performance by the 250 children who trained in Art Shop, a weeklong creative workshop. Working with professional visual and performing artists and writers, the youth explore and learn to express their creative talents.
Arts lovers will find a full spectrum of artwork on view, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, jewelry, forged metal, photography and woodwork.
Coeur d’Alene artists Allen and Mary Dee Dodge have been volunteers at Art on the Green for 36 years and have been exhibiting their artwork at the festival for more than a decade. Working as a team, they create whimsical, colorful carved wood and metal sculptures.
The chickens, crows, fish and other figures in their imagery are wrought from recycled materials. The wood comes mostly from Coeur d’Alene’s fallen trees.
Spokane artist Gay Waldman will be featuring new images collaged within acrylic paintings in addition to her digitally enhanced photographs.
Jo Fyfe has been with the festival for 15 years. The Spokane painter’s work “explores the juxtaposition of the shapes of birds, animals and fish on grids, game boards and puzzle pieces,” she said.
Spokane watercolor artist Mari Anne Figgins says she’s “doing the show circuit,” coming to Art on the Green from Kalispell’s Arts in the Park last weekend.
Figgins paints a range of subjects, but says that most of her current work is commissioned by pet owners requesting portraits of their animals.
The Juried Show includes works from both artists who have exhibition booths and others.
The jurors select winners for artistic awards in two-dimensional and three-dimensional categories. One outstanding artist will also receive the Holmberg Memorial award, created in memory of Ralph and Jeanne Holmberg, who donated graphics and printing for the festival in years past.
“It’s a very strong show. A lot of variety,” said Sue Flammia, one of the festival’s founders.
Speaking on behalf of Art on the Green’s thousands of volunteers throughout the past 40 years, she said, “This is for the artists. And this is for the community. We do it for the love of the arts.”