PEACH WEEKENDER | ART

Art-A-Fair celebrates 10th anniversary

Weekend event to showcase 75 local artisans

A 10-year-old public art exhibition opens next weekend in downtown Toledo with a focus on the talent of local creatives.

Art-A-Fair is a celebration of the show’s decade-long existence and will showcase almost 300 works of art and literature by 75 local artisans, said Annette Jensen, founder of PRIZM, the nonprofit that organizes the annual show.

“We try to ensure that a big public exhibition endures in this area,” Jensen said. “This is our 10th year for the show and every year it’s bigger and better.”

The exhibit, which will be installed in the Fifth Third Building at One SeaGate, 550 N. Summit St., will run for nine weeks, and opens with a reception from 3 to 6 p.m. April 9.

This year’s event includes the creative challenge “Jubilee Journey,” more than 70 original works by local artists who feel the piece is representative of their own personal journey. The show’s jurors will determine awards in the challenge as well as in art and literature. Participation by local high school artists will be included and the public will be able to vote for the People’s Choice at the April 9 reception.

Jurors for the show are: Tom Barden, professor emeritus of English at the University of Toledo; Adam Levine, assistant director and associate curator of ancient art at the Toledo Museum of Art; Karen Roderick-Lingeman, a senior lecturer and head of the ceramics department at UT; and Ann Stranahan, an art historian, author, and co-producer of Toledo Stories, a series by WGTE Public Media.

The exhibition costs about $5,000 to bring to fruition, and is largely supported this year by Buckeye CableSystem, with some grant funding from the Ohio Arts Council, Jensen said.

‘Boats at Anchor,’ a digital photograph by Michael Basista, will be on exhibit at Art-A-Fair. The exhibit runs through June 18.

Art-A-Fair will be open for public viewing Mondays through Fridays, from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., and on the weekends from noon to 6 p.m. each day. The exhibition will also be a part of the 3rd Thursday Art Loops on April 21, May 19, and June 16. The exhibition ends June 18.

For more information, go to myprizm.com.

■ Local artist Dave Wisniewski is having an exhibition of 14 new paintings through the month of April at the River Centre Gallery, 5679 Main St., in downtown Sylvania.

Wisniewski, who is legally blind, paints large, imposing characters from the Wild West on even larger canvases.

You can check out his work at the gallery at a reception from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, and if you can’t make that, the exhibition, From Under the Brim, will remain at the gallery through the end of the month.

For more information, go to davewisniewski.com.

■ The Toledo Artists’ Club is having its annual auction at 7 p.m. April 23, at the Maumee Elks Lodge, 139 W. Main St.

This the club’s biggest fund-raiser of the year, according to club members, and will feature more than 80 pieces of work from northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan residents. The auction is a juried event.

Funds raised go to the nonprofit’s operating expenses, and some will be awarded in the form of a scholarship to a local college student. The club is asking for a $2 donation at the door.

The Toledo Artists’ Club has about 225 members, and is located at a facility within the Toledo Botanical Gardens.

For more information, call 419-531-4079, or go to toledoartistclub.com.

■ An acrylic painting exhibition by Maumee Valley Country Day School students in first through sixth grades is on display in the Toledo Zoo Aquarium’s Reflections Gallery through June 5.

The students created aquatic animal characters on large, wood panels from literature that told stories of the creatures.

The literary pieces that inspired the project included The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, Jangles, a Big Fish Story by David Shannon; One Fish, Two Fish by Dr. Seuss; and The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish, a fairy tale by Alexander Pushkin.

Send news of art items at least two weeks in advance to rgedert@theblade.com or call 419-724-6075.

Contact Roberta Gedert at: rgedert@theblade.com or 419-724-6075 or on Twitter @RoGedert.