Festival of the Arts, “The Lion King” make for a full day of culture
Festivalgoer Liv Adams chose Indian food for lunch at the 2009 Festival of the Arts Thursday. The festival ends today. (Photo by Jim Beckel/The Oklahoman)
For my art-loving family, Saturday was a big day in Oklahoma City.
My parents, husband, younger son and I spent Saturday afternoon at the downtown Festival of the Arts. It’s a tradition for my husband and I to go out on the Saturday of the festival to take in the art, food and children’s activities at the free event.
For the first time, my parents came along to check out the event. For my mom, an art enthusiast, it was a great chance to enjoy a beautiful (if slightly windy) spring day and find another piece or two for her home.
As we entered the festival grounds, we walked into one of my toddler’s favorite places, the large-scale Sculpture Park. He petted a giant bronze moose, sat in the lap of a baby bear and tapped at the keys of a giant typewriter, with me snapping photos along the way.
Before we headed over to the 144 artists tents on Hudson Avenue, we made our way to the Pottery Place behind Stage Center. Gabe, my 2-year-old, wanted to paint a pot, and the Pottery Place offers inexpensive, already formed pots of different sizes that adults and children can coat with different glazes. Volunteers fire them raku-style in trash cans filled with smoldering newspaper, transforming the murky-looking glazes into beautiful, shining shades of copper, silver, blue and green.
One volunteer was nice enough to stop Gabe before he got too much glaze on his pot, and when my toddler protested, the volunteer let him paint a little more on a cracked, already completed pot just to let him get it out of his system.
It takes an hour for the pots to finish the firing stage, so it’s a good idea to do this activity early on during your festival visit.
Artist Julie Rice demonstrates western “touch” artistry as she works on a piece during the opening day of the 2009 Festival of the Arts. (Photo by Chris Landsberger/The Oklahoman)
We then headed over to Artist Row, making it a priority to find Kansas artist Julie Rice, who creates Western paintings with a very unusual technique. Instead of applying brush or blade, she uses her finger to dab paint on canvas. It sounds like a simplistic process, but she is capable of creating amazing paintings. I met Julie at the ‘08 festival when I interviewed her for a story, and we were happy to see each other again. My mom loved watching her paint and vowed to buy one of her prints at the Artist Market, where the artists sell their prints for $60 or less.
As we made our way up and down Hudson, we also admired the artwork of painter John Booth, photographer Ron Mellott, sculptor Belinda Riley and many other artists. My mom spent quite awhile at Rory Morgan’s booth and also picked out a lovely print of a multicolored sunset from Morgan, the Oklahoma City painter who created the painting for the official ‘09 festival poster.
We then trekked across the Myriad Botanical Gardens, enjoying the green grass, trees and colorful blossoms, checked out the elaborate kinetic sculptures in the Windscapes exhibit and paused at the Water Stage to hear the folk sounds of the Tall Cotton String Band. We were headed for the Youth Plaza, where our first stop was the Young at Art Mart. (I did a story on the Young at Art Mart Friday for Saturday’s The Oklahoman, NewsOK and the blog.)
Emily Johnson, 10, shops for prints at the Young at Art Mart at the Festival of the Arts on Friday. (Photo by Steve Gooch/The Oklahoman)
The Young at Art Mart gives kids 12 and younger the chance to buy a piece of fine art for $5 or less. The only adults allowed inside the tent are festival volunteers, which gives the children an opportunity to buy something they really like without any parental influence. A kind volunteer named Jason took Gabe by the hand and guided him through the art selections. My toddler quickly selected a John Galbo photo of green wagons at an outdoor market, and proudly showed it to all of us.
While in the children’s area, we also watched the performers of the All About Irish Performance Group and got Gabe a balloon. Once we picked up his pot, we realized he got three souvenirs from the event for just $12, a great bargain.
After dining on barbecue sandwiches, fish and chips, Strawberries Newport and more in the food court – more on that later – we left the arts festival and headed back to my house. We dropped off the guys, changed clothes, picked up my sister and headed back downtown.
We were bound for the Civic Center, where my sister, mom and I had tickets to see national touring production of “The Lion King.”
Phindile Mkhize as Rafiki and the gazelles in “The Lion King.”
If you haven’t seen Julie Taymor’s gorgeously imaginative adaptation of the hit Disney movie, you definitely should. I highly recommend this entertaining musical. Just seeing the inventive costumes and puppets employed to transform actors into elephants, gazelles, birds, giraffes, zebras, rhinos, plants, grass and more. It is incredible and wonderfully entertaining. The quality of the stage design, singing and dancing are all first rate.
It was my second time to see “The Lion King,” and I enjoyed it just as much on my return visit as I did the first. Taymor’s incredible artistry never ceases to amaze.
The Festival of the Arts ends today in downtown Oklahoma City. “The Lion King” runs through May 23 at the Civic Center. I highly recommend both to art lovers.
-BAM
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