Atlanta heat waves are oppressive, and convincing people to leave their hermit-like conditions and venture outside is difficult, but the first-ever Festival on Ponce attracted thousands and gave local and national artists a great opportunity to show and sell their work.
Walking up to Olmsted Linear Park, the buzz of electric fans accompanied local bands as festival attendees traversed the long, narrow park in the Druid Hills neighborhood, observing the multitude of arts and crafts and fine art on display. As a first year show, it was uncertain who would actually come out, but artists, although downtrodden because of the heat, were delightfully surprised. Knox Steinbrecher, a potter from Marrietta, Ga., said, “There’s always a huge question mark with first year shows, and the heat has been a challenge, but a lot of people came out.” Steinbrecher’s intricate work won the Founder’s Award.
The biggest difference between The Festival on Ponce and other Atlanta Festivals is the quality of work featured. Unlike other Atlanta art festivals that tend to feature work that is kitschy and easily duplicated, pieces featured at Festival on Ponce were fresh off gallery walls. The work was finely finished, extremely detailed, and inspired.
Sharon Hayes Westbrook, of Jacksonville Beach, Fla., said, “For a first time show, the quality of art was very nice and it was a great way for me to show my work.” Westbrook began her career as an artist six years ago at 50 when she was done with child rearing. Since then, she has exploded onto the national art scene, and is currently preparing to show her work in Nice as part of the Franchemont Art Exhibition. Her abstract expressionist paintings are full of color and energy with long, swooping brush strokes over blended colors, making your eyes wander all over the piece, examining her brush strokes and color palate.
Although artists came from as far as Illinois to take part in the event, it was really a celebration of local talent. Ninety percent of the artists were from Georgia, and it’s always nice to be reminded of the multitude of talent living in Atlanta and surrounding areas.
Manami Yagashiro Lingerfelt, of Dallas, Ga., uses her education in traditional Japanese art to create whimsical pieces full of concentric circles and spirals, creating wonderful texture. “Every picture has a story,” Lingerfelt said, and she attaches stories to each one of her paintings. Connectivity to the earth and the heavens is a reoccurring theme, and her work often features the process of transferring of energy. Lingerfelt said “I hear more than I see,” and she uses sounds as inspiration in her artistic process, which she describes as evolutionary and undefined. Like most artists at The Festival on Ponce, she didn’t really know who would show up, but she was presently surprised with the amount of traffic her booth received.
Best in Show went to photographer Michael Bryant, whose dream-like work with the plastic Holga 120mm camera has become prolific in Atlanta cafés and coffee shops, proving that film isn’t dead and is indeed a style of photography that’s completely separate from digital photographs. Reeling from heat exhaustion, he was unavailable for comment.
The Festival on Ponce seemed like it surprised everyone. In the middle of one of the hottest summers on record, the festival was a beacon of light for the art scene in Atlanta. It showed the profound interest Atlanta has in the Arts and the high quality of artists who live there.
