THE 9TH ANNUAL COLUMBIA FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS

The ten day long Columbia Festival of the Arts has done a superb job of presenting a varied and first rate selection of dance, theatre, and music for the past eight years. The visual arts offerings were scant and often poorly planned. This year, with almost a complete change of Festival staff, I felt more hopeful.

Nine galleries in Howard County held exhibitions around the common theme of "reunion" and for the first time a booklet was printed with all the gallery listings, and one photograph to represent each show. Maryland Printmaker member Aline Feldman's photograph of her white line woodcut "Paradox of Place" was included in a booklet to represent the exhibit at the Slayton House Gallery, on June 28 she gave a slide show and a demonstration of her carving and printing techniques to a SRO audience at Slayton House.

Feldman went beyond technique to talk of how her themes of weather, time and place, also perspective, serve to symbolize the changes and passages of time in here own life. We visual artists would like to see more artist talks and demonstrations at next year's festival as well as the larger step of adding workshops.

Other visual arts events were held at the Lakefront outdoors, well attended in the steamy hot weather. The Festival has had arts and crafts tents a la Artscape for years. This year Festival planner Leslie Landsman planned an art tent for children ages six to twelve called "Creation Station." I worked with Landsman choosing the projects, going once to Resource in Baltimore to buy factory scraps. The printmaking project was large chunky stamps, carved by me from a type of dense packing material, and printed by enthusiastic children onto white paper shopping bags.

In addition, relief printmaking was in evidence at the Arts of All events, also held at the Lakefront. Landsman planned an area where people in wheelchairs could actively make huge prints. There were large rollers that could be either pushed by hands or attached to the wheelchairs. On tip of the rollers was a feeder tray for tempera paint, similar in looks to a lawn fertilizer gizmo. A small roller distributed the paint to a large roller onto which thin rubber shapes had been glued. A company in Minnesota manufactures a whole range of inventions which allow people with disabilities to make art. This special equipment, bought by the Festival and stored at Cedar Lane School in Columbia, is available for use by any interested persons. You may contact Leslie Landsman at 410-992-1422.