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Some morning rain fell as Oriental’s First Celebration of the Arts began on Saturday. But ultimately sunny weather and even sunnier spirits prevailed as Hodges Street — from the Oriental Marina to the Old Hotel — became the showcase for the works of about 50 artists from both Oriental and away.

Marlene Miller, one of the two chief organizers, says the arts fest “ brought a lot of people to Oriental who might not necessarily have come here”. The feedback she got, she says, was that most artists and Hodges Street businesses did well and supported holding the otherwise “low-impact” event again next fall.

Miller says the event could become Oriental’s “fall color tourism.” The flat-land area may not have the changing autumn leaves, but Miller suggested the color comes from another source: the artists “by avocation or vocation,” who live here. (For the event, the organizers invited artists from away to take part, too.)

No entry fee was charged. Instead, artists were to give a percentage of their profits to the Heartworks charity in Bayboro. Miller says $800 was raised, with more expected to come in.

Bill Watkins of Durham says he heard about the arts fest on-line at the last minute and decided to come and sell his dry gourds. Mostly, though, he says he “just wanted to come to Oriental” and wasn’t expecting much beyond that.

Saturday afternoon he seemed surprised at how well his dry gourds were going over. Not enough to quit his day job as a project manager at GlaxoSmithKline, but enough to keep him contentedly weaving pine needles in to the tops of dried gourds.

Just down the street under another crape myrtle tree was Lou Powell, selling “wood sprits’ that he’d handcarved out of “cypress knees” from his land in Vanceboro. This was the first ever art show for the horiculture instructor at the prison in Bayboro.

Powell says he’d recently enquired about taking drawing classes at Pamlico Community College and the instructor there spied the piece of wood that he’d been whittling- something he says he does a lot of the time. She encouraged him to enter the show in Oriental and there he was Saturday, selling the gnome-like creatures he called, “wood spirits”. Some people thought they were, as Powell pronounced it, “Santers” but he says they can be “whatever you want them to be.”

Getting an early start on the Christmas holiday season — in a subtle way — was Cliff Hill, who had mistletoe for sale. It wasn’t a bunch of green leaves and white berries, but rather vases that he turned from mistletoe wood.

Technically speaking, this wood was a fusing of the parasite — which mistletoe is — and the tree it had invaded. That mix makes for some distinctive patterns in the wood, Cliff says. He had a chunk of the raw mistletoe wood on display next to the finished products, some of them a smooth olive green, others with spalted — sections where rot had set in — that gave the vases their off-kilter look.

Mary Jane Westphal meanwhile, had people looking twice thru the screens she’d painted.

They’re good, the Oriental resident says, “if you have an area that’s not a good view.” The screen in this case, keeps out bugs and bad vistas…

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Few have been painting Pamlico County scenes as long as Janet Adkins.

Boats feature prominently in her work, and standing near some of them Saturday, she said that when she first moved here 30 years ago, she “tried to paint all of the trawlers” because she preferred them to sailboats and also thought there should be a record of them. Janet Adkins self-deprecatingly says it was “silly” but then adds that “some of the ones I painted, (later) burned or sank”.

Adkins has taught painting and French. She says that in her junior year abroad from Smith College, she lived in Paris. It was a few years after WWII and she recalls the sound of “kids’ shoes clattering on the streets because there was no leather and the shoes were made of wood”. Back then, she says, the Mona Lisa was on display in the Louvre at the end of a long hall, and not in a glass case as it is now.

Another set of paintings on display Saturday took their theme from Europe. Oriental painter Jeff Troelztsch has started a series of work inspired by two flamenco performers who passed thru Oriental late this summer on their boat.

Richard Black plays flamenco guitar and his wife Andrea dances and before leaving, they put on a show at Paradise Cove Marina in August.

Jeff Troelztsch says the couple plans to return to Oriental this winter and that another performance is being scheduled for late January/early February, perhaps at the Old Theatre. For Jeff, that will tie in with his work.; he hopes that if more people see the show and the partiuclar dance moves, they’ll recognize them in his paintings.

Not all the music at the arts fest was two-dimensional. Several local musicians played. There were Mary Duffie and her accordion (in search of the next Accordion Blast), Janice Rott playing Scottish aires on her flute and Frank Murphy playing on the porch of the Bean in the afternoon.

In the morning, the Farmers’ Market — taking place in the middle of the arts fest — featured some serenading by Sky Wiseman and Bob Laverty..

That made it difficult to stand still for a few people, such as Laura Turgeon, who was looking not unlike one of her drawings.

Posted Sunday September 16, 2007 by Melinda Penkava