Arts is such an important part of every community, and today we're at fire Art with Julie.

To find out more about the eighth annual Juried Show.

And it's called Flights of Fancy.

Yes, artwork from a whimsical perspective.

Now, why did you decide to do something very whimsical?

This year?

Well, with all the sadness going around around the area, not the area, but just in general in general, you know, I thought, hey, well, why don't we bring back our, our, our whimsy show?

It was popular, a few years back.

We had a whimsy theme for our competition.

So I thought, well, do bring it back again.

And, and, so we did have, quite a few entries this year.

I was just about to ask you, what was the response to that?

Okay, we're going to do a whimsical year.

Yeah.

Let's have fun.

Yeah, let's have fun.

And so how did the artists respond with that?

They were happy.

They were happy.

Yeah, they were, they were, we had a lot of excited people, about, doing this.

That's wonderful.

So how many artists actually are participating in this?

there are 19 artists and there are 31 pieces.

Okay, now, all of these artists are all local, and in the Michiana area, they're in the Michiana area.

There's some from, South Bend.

Michigan.

some from, Goshen area, Elkhart.

Wonderful.

Now, how have these artists been a part of Fire Arts and some of the other shows that you have here?

there are some artists who are members of Fire Arts, but a good number of the artists are, people from the community.

They're not members, but they're, you know, participating because it was open to anyone.

Oh, wonderful.

No age range at all either.

well, 18 and, 18 and up.

Okay, 18 and up.

So tell us a little bit about some of the works that we see here, because, I mean, there's so many that have caught my eye and they're so fun and they really bring a smile to your face.

this one, the minute I came in, it was kind of.

It's one of those kind of fairy tale pieces.

Yeah.

So this is done by a local artist, Rhonda Whitley, and she does a lot of these whimsical, creatures, characters.

Fairy fairy like, people.

And, they're made with, cernit which is a resin based clay.

And this is all clay.

It's it's kind of a mixed media, but most of the the parts, like the, the head feet, okay, you know, like the fish and all that that's made of clay.

And then she, she told me this is paper maché.

Oh my goodness.

Looks like, Wow.

It looks like a trunk.

It does?

Yes.

He's sitting on a tree trunk there.

Yeah.

She makes a lot of whimsical things.

Very cute.

Now I'm looking at how different they all are.

So we're going from this to the chickens?

Yes.

We have chickens.

These are, these were made by one of our artists here at Fire Arts.

Bo Blinky.

And and he, chickens are his passion.

And he has pet chickens.

So, he's done a lot with that sort of theme.

That's great.

Now, all of this is going to be displayed, but there are going to be some winners announced.

Yes.

opening day, April 13th, this coming Saturday from 3 to 5 is our our opening reception at 3:00 will be awarding first place second and third.

Okay.

Now, how is the judging done?

How do you choose?

Well, well, that's up to the juror.

You know, we tried to pick I tried to pick someone to jury the show who has a whimsical sense of humor.

And our juror was David Blodgett.

And he's known for, a lot of the mural work done in South Bend and, his wife was a sculptor as well.

Wonderful.

So how long will this be displayed at Fire Arts?

This will be on display through May 31st and second Saturday in May.

We'll have, reception where the People's Choice Award will be, awarded.

So starting, well, starting now, or any time anyone can come in between now and, the first week or so of May, you can come in and vote for what you think is your favorite piece, and then we'll award the People's Choice Award.

Then on the the 11th of May.

And fire artists have been doing this for many years.

Yeah.

Except during the pandemic.

I think everybody took a pause during the pandemic.

Yeah, I had a great I had a great title for that one.

It was going to be what's your 2020 vision?

Oh, God.

And it's like the vision everyone's at home.

That was the vision that year.

Yeah.

So so how many years have you been doing this?

Oh my gosh.

several years.

I think the first time might have been 2014.

Nice.

We try to do it every year.

Great, great.

So we're going on ten years now.

Yeah.

Well we had like a 2 year break or so.

So eight years.

There we go.

Yeah okay.

Yeah.

Math isn't my high point here.

No.

Me neither.

Me neither.

Thank you so much Julie.

And again the the show is called Flights of Fancy.

And you can get more information on our website experience michiana.org.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for stopping by.