Stage is set for Vashon Summer Arts Fest
Published 1:30 am Monday, July 2, 2018
Vashon Center for the Arts will kick off a free, two-month-long celebration of island art and artists on Friday, July 6, with the first-ever Vashon Summer Arts Fest, set to take place around and within the arts center through Aug. 26.
With a series of rolling exhibitions, performances, workshops and demonstrations, the festival will showcase and sell artwork by more than 80 local artists in more than 45 individual and collaborative exhibits and events held in the Koch Gallery, the Katherine L White Hall lobby and various spaces on the center’s campus.
New artists will be rotated in and out of the festival each Friday in an ongoing series of three-week exhibitions. Special family friendly events will take place on Saturdays.
VCA’s executive director Kevin Hoffberg said the idea for the festival germinated in mid-March with a conversation he had with island artist Bruce Morser. A week later, Hoffberg and his staff met with a group of local artists to discuss the idea, which took off quickly.
“Lo and behold, we are making it happen thanks to the outpouring of interest by our local arts community, the hard work of our staff and the great support of our sponsors,” Hoffberg said, in a press release.
Lynann Politte, a local producer who was hired by VCA to wrangle the sprawling festival, said the event was aimed at benefiting both artists and art audiences as well as buyers.
“I’m looking at this as giving both exposure and commerce to our Vashon artists,” she said.
Politte offered a dizzying array of what’s to come in the fest: a curated group exhibition that will explore history, myths, metaphors and taboos about the color red in general, and red shoes in particular; a collection of collages by several island artists; a number of photography exhibits; a curated show of Vashon High School art students; a ceramic group show with more than 23 artists; and a multi-discipline installation with sculptural furniture, including a 1,500-pound cement chair. Other projects will include a community weaving project, hanging mobiles and a composition of sounds recorded in and around VCA buildings, with achoreographed dance piece. Other artistic surprises will pop up through the fest as well.
For complete information, visit VashonSummerArtsFest.org. or vashoncenterforthearts.org.
Vashon Summer Arts Fest begins
Vashon Summer Arts Fest kicks off at 5:30 p.m. Friday, July 6, with an opening party to include a multidisciplinary performance of Allison Trundle’s “ReWild.” Against the backdrop of three large paintings, Trundle’s piece uses dancers, actors and musicians to tell the story of 15-year-old Fern and her quest as a tracker to find a missing child. “ReWild” will also be performed at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, July 7.
Gallery shows opening on Friday at the fest will include Brian Dempsey’s paintings, illustration and sculpture; Christy Marsh’s oils and oil/wax paintings; Ethan DeLorenzo’s “Architectural Instrumentation”; Gretchen Hancock’s oil paintings of Vashon and the Northwest; a photography group show curated by Kim Farrell; Karlista Rickerson’s scuba diving photography; Kevin Taylor’s paintings; a Vashon High School group show curated by Kristen Dallum and VHS students; Lori Walters’ and Margo Tantau’s paintings and mixed media; and stop-motion and time lapse videos by Louis Luechtefeld, an 11-year-old animator.
At 2 p.m. Saturday, July 7, Ethan DeLorenzo will conduct a song recording and editing workshop for kids ages 9 to 13. DeLorenzo, who moved to Vashon after a career in recording music, will guide budding musicians through the process of recording each child’s composition and then demonstrate how to mix all the sounds into a final composition.
