Polonia Culture and Arts Festival

By Henryka Olbrot, PhD
-----------------------------
Fine Arts Show to Feature Polish Artists
New art and new ideas will be showcased at the long running “Festival of the Arts” at Nativity Episcopal Church in Bloomfield Township, Michigan. The showcase and sale will take place September 16-18, 2011 and include an educational component.  This year’s event will have the support of the Lakeland Society of Artists and the Polish Mission of Orchard Lake.  Diverse and wide ranging fine art disciplines will be presented. 

The honored juror for the competition element of the show is Wayne State Professor Urban Jupena.  He specializes as a fiber artist and he has had many commissions in public spaces throughout metro Detroit.  The Chrysler World Headquarters and the Renaissance Center both have large Jupena originals.  Recently he presented at the International Triennial of Tapestry in Lodz, Poland. Jupena is also a fine arts historian receiving his advanced degree from the Cranbrook Academy of Art.  He is the president of the Michigan Surface Design Association, a professional arts group.

Co-Chairs Tim and Diane Wittlinger are longtime parishioners at Nativity and have been active with the “Festival of the Arts” since its inception in 1970.  They are both on the church counsel and Tim, an attorney for Clark Hill in Detroit, is an avid nature photographer.  He is a veteran community theater performer with the Village Players in Birmingham.

Pat Sarotte of the Lakeland Society of Artists said, “I am looking forward to the opening night reception so the artists can mingle and network.”

Nativity Episcopal Church has had a long pedigree of working with artists and creating a place to perform, teach, and display their art.  Deborah Odette, formerly of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will supervise the staging and hanging.  The exhibition items will be for sale.

Education is one of the themes of this years Festival. Rayneld Johnson, PhD., the Fashion and Design Coordinator at Wayne State will be presenting “Art to Wear.”

Recent WSU graduate and Gucci style intern Erica Woodliff will display an innovative and sustainable “The Coffee Filter Dress” with each component hand painted.

Besides the fine art there will be many more visual genres presented.  A re-emerging art medium that will have an instructional focus is felt.  So very popular in Lithuania and Poland, the textile has endless versatility.  The ancient connection with Europe is now considered innovative and modern.  What is old is now new?  Ethical, eco-art with sustainable principals will be part of the future. 

The church has a permanent display of stained glass and unique fiber pieces by Jane Hooper.  Hooper, a retired WSU professor had been a longtime supporter of the Festival.  Her academic presentation on art in the new millennium, presented in 2000 is still referenced.

"Coffee Filter Dress" by recent Wayne State University textile design artist Erica Woodliff

The opening reception will present an opportunity to mingle with the artists and the evening will have the hospitality energies of Estelle Zelasko, stylist for Uptown Weddings.  Music, wine, hors d’oeuvres and chocolate tasting will accompany.  Art supporter Donna Picarski-Calhoun said, “We are reaching out to a new generation of young artists, young people always have fresh ideas.”    

Another not-to-miss presentation at the church is the outdoor garden art labyrinth.  In 2005 the Episcopal Church & Visual Arts organization, a non-denominational virtual art group, highlighted Nativity as a featured congregation for their special inclusion of art in the community.

There will be a remembrance of longtime and celebrated "Palette and Brush Club" contributor Donna Andruccioli-Vogelheim.  The transparent water-color master and Farmington’s Artist-in-Residence passed away recently after a long and brave battle with cancer.  The Providence Hospital Foundation will be having a show in her name, “Donna Vogelheim - Healing Power of Art.”

The Nativity Episcopal Church is located at
21220 West 14-Mile Road, Bloomfield Township, MI  48301
For more information and tickets to the gala opening, 248-642-5577

www.nativityartsfestival.org
www.stjohnpfh.live.biznetis.net/CommunityCalendarListing.aspx?ClassDateID=3560
www.ecva.org/congregations/features/nativity_bloomfield_township/nativity.htm
www.shefelt.ca