Artists in Action

Providing the unique identity of the Smoky Hill River Festival are the inspiring, colorful, and provocative Artist-in-Action projects. Born of artistic collaboration, the still point of landscape, and artistic imagination, our Artists in Action speak volumes without saying a word. Many of the projects are incorporated into the overall look of the Festival. The projects planned for this year:

“ARTHROPARADE”: The Festival”s most social visitors are back! Rich Bergen and Larry Goodwin”s large-scale ants will parade into the park over the Bicentennial Center Foot Bridge with their other arthropod friends! Follow their trail into the celebration.

“Attack of the Creative Crawlers – The Fab Five IN-Spiders”: Meander through these giant, colorful, creative crawlers. Five, large daddy long legs, created by Kansas City artist Matt Dehaemers, are not meant to scare, but to “in-spider” young and old Festival goers with their paintbrush-like legs.

“Catch You on the Flipside”: Experience the emotions and images of past Festivals through a photo montage that captures the essence and history of the Smoky Hill River Festival. Created by artists Ann Arkebauer, Chris Wilson, and Adam Wilson, graphic elements of the project will focus on people and varied elements of human characteristics and actions (smiles, eating, dancing, etc.)

“Dream Catchers”: Members of McPherson College”s sculpture class represent varying perspectives and aesthetics with their large-scale dream catchers. Made of natural and recyclable materials, the Dream Catchers showcase art that is environmentally friendly. Class instructor Ann Zerger gave students the task of designing a piece of art that will eventually disappear.

“Distance, Direction, Event”: The City of Salina recently installed way-finding signs throughout the community to help visitors locate our town”s remarkable cultural organizations, such as the Smoky Hill River Festival. Similarly, Wichita artist Elizabeth Stevenson will use weathervanes, mounted throughout the Festival grounds, to surprise and delight attendees. The weathervanes are made of recovered and recycled objects. How many can you find?

“Flower Animals”: Kansas City artist Juniper/T.J. Tangpuz takes his inspiration for these sculptures from flowers that have animal names. From “Tiger Lilly” to “Dandelion” these sculptures reflect characteristics of both animal and flower.

Get Caught Reading at the Festival!: All weekend long, Salina Public Library staff will be roam the Festival crowds, looking for anyone they catch reading. Readers will be given a special acknowledgement at the Festival and will be entered into a drawing for a great prize. So, grab a book, and bring it with you.

Harrell Fletcher Installation: The Salina Art Center brings visual artist Harrell Fletcher from Portland State University, where he is Professor of Art and Social Practice. Fletcher is an interdisciplinary arts practitioner who often involves disparate groups of individuals or organizations working collectively toward a socially engaged endeavor. Fletcher will work with a number of area volunteers to create a project that responds to the social and cultural context of the Salina community. Join us in welcoming him.

“Looks Like Lips”: Salina artist Ann Arkebauer presents 10 large, colorfully painted canvases featuring the use of multiple intersecting, angular, and opposing radiating lines. This study in patterns challenges the viewer to determine the “background” and “foreground,” while discovering other “pattern groupings” as they come to life in each panel.

“Metamorphosis”: Everyone coming together at an arts festival fosters inspiration in us all, including installation artist Bill Godfrey, of Tarentum, PA, who will use art as the catalyst to celebrate the community”s creative change. Vibrant colors and festive imagery surround the pond (next to Stage II) – people holding hands, individually changing in one “collective movement”.

“Mirrahzh” – Salinan Brad Anderson revisits a mylar installation first created for the Festival in 1988. Participants who enter the installation will disappear from view as they are surrounded by a combination of shimmering reflections from their own clothes and body, as well as the sky above, and those around them. Fragments of the visible, perceivable world are present, but ever-changing.

Mobile Arts Lab: Join us for the birth of a new summer program! The Mobile Arts Lab is a rolling arts incubator that will bring an array of art projects to Salina neighborhoods and organizations throughout June and July. Look for project demonstrations at the Festival.

“Mystic Garden”: This series of large aquatic plant-like forms of natural branches and cuttings by Gypsum artist Don Osborn reference and contrast regional Kansas landscape. Bright celebrative colors spark the imagination and lead the view to reflect on history and perception of objects and of art, a relationship shaped through layered interpretations.

“Nature”s Playfulness”: Kansas City graffiti artist GEAR returns with his unique eye for the character and detail within the creatures that surround us. Watch this “artist-in-action”!

Poetry Wall: Rich Bergen”s “S River Scroll” magnetic Poetry Wall provides the canvas for this ever-changing literary masterpiece! Local high school English teachers and students, coordinated by Katrina Paradis, will lead this popular returning activity.

“Reinventing the Wheel”: This mesmerizing and graceful kinetic sculpture, designed by David Exline, of Aliso Viejo, CA, with the creative and technical minds of the Exline family, truly reflects an outstanding community collaboration and has become a Festival gem.

Riverbank Mural: Artist Collin Benson of Denver, CO, takes color to the scenic riverbank. Look for his newest Festival creation.

“Tent of Dreams”: Ever dream that you were flying? Artist Bill Godrey, of Tarentum, PA, uses dream images as the inspiration for a fabric tent that is constructed over the Fourth Street bridge. Travel through a dreamscape journey of strange and wonderful images.

Tennis Court Fence Installation: Inspired by the paintings of Austrian artist, Hundertwasser, Erika Nelson, of Lucas, KS, and Bill Godfrey, of Tarentum, PA, collaborate to create vivid imagery expressing their tribute to the simplified shapes and imagery of this great artist.

“Surreal Trees”: A signature project of Salina”s regional artists, led by Solomon art instructor Alicia Firstbrook-Stott, and the primary decorative element of the Festival. Surreal Trees, artfully decorated, are a Festival signature.