By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Three newcomers and a local favorite came away with the top prizes in this year’s Black Swamp Arts Festival juried art show.
Woodworker Ellen Smith, of Bowling Green, came away with Best of Show honors.
She’s a familiar face on BG’s Main Street, having exhibited at the Black Swamp Arts Festival for nine years, and is a regular vendor at the Firefly Nights summer festivals. She also leads the construction of parklets each spring.
Though she’s received awards at previous festival, this was her first as $2,000 Best of Show winner.
Other award winners were:
- Kati Kleimola, painting, Best 2-D, $1,500
- Alison Vasquez, jewelry, Best 3-D, $1,500
- Emily Sekerak, printmaking, Judge’s Award $1,000
- Shannon Lewis, Sustainability, $500
- Chuck Strasshofer, ceramics, Emerging Artist, $500
- Aya Kang, ceramics, Josiah Eidmann, jewelry, and Chris Plummer, printmaking, honorable mentions, $350
Lindsay Glass, of the festival’s visual arts committee said it was “a tough decision” on who would get the top award.
“No part was easy,” she said. The jury was “looking for people with really strong work, a variety of work, a variety of price points and also how they arranged their booths and aesthetically drew people into the booth.”
The hometown show has a special place in Smith’s heart. “This festival showed me I could do this as a mom and make a business out of art.”
Her work has evolved over the years. “I am very conscious of using all my materials,” she said. “There’s very little waste.” What’s left after making the larger planters becomes the tiny planters.
Smith said she’s developed a strong local customer base as well as out of town buyers at larger festivals.
“This is definitely the best festival I do,” Smith said.
This was the first time painter Kati Kleimola exhibited at the festival, but she had attended it in the past.
As she started exhibiting her work ,she wanted to be here. “There’s a lot of talented work in this show, a lot of wonderful booths, a lot of great energy.”
A graduate of the Columbus School of Art and Design, she said she has always painted. When she was 5, she even hosted her own exhibit of her art in her home, inviting family, friends, and neighbors to attend.
Kleimola taught art at Trinity Lutheran in Toledo, and now teaches classes at the Toledo Museum of Art and Art Supply Depo.
The native of Toledo, whose family has lived in the same zip code for five generations, said: “I’m really intrigued by everyday moments things that other people might drive by.”
Others may think the overgrown lawn is ugly, and may even report it, “but they catch my eye. … I find them really lovely in the way they catch the light.”
Jeweler Alison Vasquez, the best 3-D winner, from Livonia, Michigan, also was familiar as a visitor with the show before entering for the first time this year.
Her participation on the art fair circuit is just gearing up. It’s been five years since she decided to turn her long-time interest in silver and metal smithing into a business. That decision to make a go of it was stalled, but not derailed, by the pandemic. Now she does a couple shows a month April through October, and a few holiday shows.
She’s been making a lot of rings lately, she said and that was evident by what she had on display in her booth. The predominance of rings also reflects good sales at this July’s Ann Arbor Art Fair. “That really cleaned me out,” Vasquez said. “As one woman operation it’s hard to replenish” her stock.
Receiving the award was a surprise, she said. She hadn’t even noticed the jurors checking out her booth on Friday. Having the ribbon may help, though on Saturday afternoon all eyes seem to be focused on the jewelry.
Emily Sekerak, of Newark, won the Judge’s Award, which as the festival’s website explains “selection based on creativity and jury interest, not necessarily technical expertise.”
Sekerak, a self-taught artist, is another newcomer to the festival. She’s a graduate of Ohio State with a degree in public health.
Her interest in art was originally in painting. “But I found it so hard to let go of my originals,” she said “You only have the one.”
With printmaking she creates multiple originals in editions of 50 or 100. “It lends itself to being sharable, and it allows people to have an original piece of art at a lower price point.”
Her prints focus on stories and myths. She’s just started creating a series focused on the seven wonders of the ancient world.
While she has participated in pop-up shows and smaller art fairs, Sekerak started entering larger shows last year. That was boosted by her participating in the program for emerging artists at the Columbus Arts Festival last year. The program assists new artists by renting them tents and hosting workshops and a “boot camp.”
Sekerak did about a dozen shows this year, testing the market. Next year, she said, she’ll cut back. “It’s a lot of work.”
