Since 2005, the Carriage Factory Gallery has celebrated the arrival of summer and the opening of our Summer Exhibit with a grand, all day celebration.
Dubbed the "Celebration of Sound & Color" the first year because the event featured great sound as well as great art, this event has proven to be popular with artists, band members and the public at large.
The event has evolved greatly in the past three years, but the grand finale has remained an open air concert in the J. J. Krehbiel Park adjacent to the gallery. Each "Celebration" has been blessed with great weather conditions. As in years past, we had clear skies all day, with slanting sunlight and cooling shadows providing the perfect setting for a concert and the perfect conclusion to a day of events.
The "Third Annual Celebration of Sound & Color" held true to form and was a great success. Wonderful weather. A great exhibit. A packed house for the Artists' Reception and band concert. Bar-be-cue pork and free ice cream. What more could you ask for?
The gallery officially opened at 9 a.m. and the day concluded with an outdoor performance by the Senseney Music Wichita Community Band in the gallery’s J. J. Krehbiel Park.
In between, we had carriage rides, a colored pencil demonstration, the artists reception for the Summer 2007 Exhibit, "The Wild, Wild, West", pork bar-be-cue and ice cream.
Grand prize winners were drawn on Wednesday, July 11. Winners are:
First Grand Prize, Original Acrylic Painting by Judy Bazil: Josephine Schmidt, North Newton
Second Grand Prize, $200 gift certificate: Anita Bohn, North Newton
Third Grand Prize, Purple Iris II reproduction by Gloria Webber: Helen Hensiek of Newton
The day began with the installation of an exhibit of historic American Flags. This colorful exhibit ringed the J. J. Krehbiel Park with a sound and color of its own all day long. Though the hot afternoon sun took a bit of a toll on some of the display equipment, the flags flew all day long and into the evening, providing a colorful and bright setting for the concert.
The flags were accompanied by historical information presented either as a basic index of names, dates and nationalities (some of the earliest flags were the national flags of explorers) or as a more indepth written history. The pages of the written history corresponded with a number on each flag. Equipped with the written history, visitors could tour the exhibit and read about each flag in turn.
Two new flags were included in this year's flag exhibit.
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One of the highlights of the day were carriage rides. Country Boys Carriage & Prairie Adventures brought two vehicles and three horses to the Carriage Factory Gallery. From 1 to approximately 3 p.m., they gave rides to visitors and staff alike.
The colored pencil demonstration conducted by Newton Fine Arts Association members Jeannette Seger and Carrie L. Lewis also proved to be a popular day-time event.
Jeannette provided a basic class project for anyone who was interested. Carrie worked on one of her equine paintings in colored pencil and was joined by eight-year-old Molly, who drew a collection of images from her imagination!
Visitors, browsers and students alike all enjoyed the two-hour demonstration and there was talk of more demonstrations and classes in the future.
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Evening events began with the artists' reception from 5 to 7 p.m.
All four featured artists were in attendance and all of them spent two hours meeting and greeting visitors and talking about their work. Approximately 250 visitors in and out of the gallery during that time.
Photos of Sharon Connaway, Patricia Hines and Virgil Penner are included in the reception photos that follow. Unfortunately, the photographs of Loren Entz show him surrounded by visitors!
The exhibit itself is a stunning collection of paintings, drawings, sculpture and other types of work. The Western Art theme has proven extremely popular and has brought many new visitors to the gallery.
But the unthemed portion of the exhibit is also a great collection and was quite popular with "Celebration" visitors.
Refreshments were provided by Schwan's Fine Frozen Foods, who parked an ice cream truck at our back door and dispensed ice cream throughout the reception and concert and by Prairie Harvest of Newton, who supplied a very popular cheese and cracker tray. I was very fortunate, indeed, to be able to sample a slice of very good cheese and excellent crackers before it was too late!
New for this year was the addition of hot food in the evening: The Loose Caboose's Rollin' Rib Cage. The Rollin' Rib Cage, which opened officially only a few weeks before the "Celebration", was brought on board for the "Celebration" so late that a lot of the advertising was already in the paper by the time everything was finalized. Even so, many people enjoyed smoked pull pork sandwich meals before, during and after the band concert. The Rollin' Rib Cage has already expressed an interest in returning next year.
 Sharon Connaway |
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 Patricia Hines |
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 Virgil Penner |
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Senseney Music's Wichita Community Band once again provided a stellar program. Musical pieces included a medley of "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest", a medley from the "Wizard of Oz", "Anchors Aweigh" and "Sabre and Spurs" by John Phillip Sousa.
The concert began with a Presentation of Colors to "Sabre and Spurs", followed by the "Star Spangled Banner". Colors were presented by Newton Fire/EMS Honor Guard members, Bob Maier, Firefighter/EMT and Joel Zehr, Firefighter/Paramedic. Mike Budde, also of Newton Fire/EMS, took time from his busy schedule to meet with gallery staff and lead horn player, David Martin, to work out the logistics on the Presentation and Retreat of the Colors.
We had the best turn out to date for the concert and actually had a brief seating problem. Many concert goers brought lawn chairs or blankets and enjoyed the concert in picnic-style. I also observed many people pausing at the park fence to look and listen before continuing on their way to or from downtown.
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The day concluded, as it always does, with the drawing of door prizes. This year, local artists, businesses and individuals provided over 20 door prizes that included souvenir mugs and t-shirts from the Carriage Factory Gallery, reproductions of original artwork, fine art note cards, coupons for pizza, hand-made bracelets, hand bags, jewelry, gift certificates and other prize items.
Over 300 visitors toured the various parts of the exhibit and the collection of events on Saturday. Some came for the colored pencil workshop. Many came to meet the featured artists and see great artwork, then stayed for the concert.
Overall, the event was a great success, with a lot of repeat and first time visitors, great sales and lots of things to do. This event continues to grow with every year.
A big thank you to everyone who made the gallery part of their day on Saturday, July 7. We are already looking forward to next year.
In closing, I want to once again thank each and every one of our sponsors. We could not do this event without their assistance and support!
THANK YOU TO ALL OF OUR SPONSORS!!!
Midland National Bank; Newton
The Newton Kansan; Newton
Judy Bazil, Artist; Newton
Creation Station; Newton
GMLS Industries, Inc.; Peabody
Katherine's; Newton
Krueger Insurance Management, Inc.; Newton
Carrie L. Lewis, Artist; Newton
Papa John's Pizza of Newton; Newton
Prairie Harvest; Newton
Gloria Webber, Artist; Newton
Yoga Center of Newton; Newton
And finally a big "thank you" to Ross Cole. All of these photographs and many more were taken by Ross, who spent almost as much of the day at the gallery as Neal and I did! Great work, Ross!
"This program is presented in part by the Kansas Arts Commission, a state agency,
and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency."
Carriage Factory Gallery -
128 East Sixth Street -
Newton, Kansas 67114
316/284-2749 -
cfgnfaa@sbcglobal.net
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© 2007 Carriage Factory Gallery.
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