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North Shore artists at Old Orchard fest
Found art by photographer Patrick Carr.
North Shore
Festival of Art
Westfield Shopping Center, 4999 Old Orchard Center, Skokie
10 a.m. to 5 p.m. July 27-29
Admission is free
(847) 926-4300 or visit www.northshorefestivalof art.com
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Updated: July 24, 2012 7:20PM
You can add fine art to your shopping list this weekend as the expanded North Shore Festival of Art returns to the Westfield Old Orchard mall in Skokie with more artists and an extra day for browsing.
More than 150 juried painters, sculptors, photographers, jewelers, printmakers, furniture makers and other artisans from around the country will set up shop Friday through Sunday in the inner courts of the mall. In addition to the art on display, attractions will include live music from three stages and a children’s area.
“When people support a show and it thrives, it starts to develop a good reputation among artists — and that’s what’s happened here,” said festival organizer Amy Amdur. “We have a lot of new artists coming in this year because they’ve heard it’s such a successful show.”
Great setting
One reason for that, Amdur added, is that people are attracted to the ease of enjoying art while ambling through the mall.
“It’s such a pleasant environment,” she said. “The setting is so beautiful. There are trees, fountains, fish ponds, shelter if it rains and shade if it’s hot, and plenty of places to sit and relax along the way.”
Artists travel from as far as New York and Miami to exhibit in the North Shore Festival of Art, but the Chicago area is also well-represented.
Patrick Carr of Evanston focuses on found objects for images he sometimes calls “accidental still lifes.”
“I like to shoot unusual
things that people have lost, old signage, toys that have been thrown away, interesting things I find laying on the ground or in an abandoned show window or hanging from the sides of buildings,” said the photographer, who shoots on film and does traditional black-and-white darkroom printing. “Things that have been left behind and forgotten, that take on a new meaning after they’ve been abandoned.
“It’s a visceral thing. There’s a kind of beauty, I think, in the way things decay over time and develop a patina.”
Flaming art
Kim Moyal and Greg Sobanski, partners in the Clear Candle gallery of Northbrook, make a specialty of organic, toxin-free, refillable aromatic candles incorporating materials such as foliage, flowers, pebbles, sand and fruit into miniature works of art.
“Our candles are made of 96 percent white mineral oil with another glass in the center for the wick, which illuminates the artwork,” Moyal said. “We use real foliage: roses, orchids, all types of flowers. All types of natural materials. Sometimes we blow sand into the glass to create abstract patterns. It’s a new medium; we think of it as little sculptures enclosed in glass.”
Mosaic artist Michelle Davidove of Lincolnshire goes for more of a surface impression with her work, which involves the artful placement of colored mosaic tiles on pretty much anything imaginable.
“Tables, picture frames, vases, belt buckles, anything you might think of, I do,” said Davidove, whose work is also available in area stores under the name Mosaics by Michelle D. “I love it because I can put things together anyway I like. It’s like putting a puzzle together that I make up as I go along.”
