🎥 HAC Spring Art Walk celebrates diversity, 50th of Smoky Hill Exhibition

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

The Hays Arts Council Spring Art Walk has no boundaries.

Brenda Meder, HAC executive director, said the walk has no boundaries in the types of art that will be displayed or performed and no boundaries of the types of people expressing themselves through their art. The Spring Art Walk will be 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Friday.

The Spring Art Walk again will be anchored by the Smoky Hill Art Exhibition, which is celebrating its 50th year. The Smoky Hill is the longest, continuously running juried art show in the state of Kansas and is set annually at the Hays Arts Center, 112 E. 11th.

In honor of the 50th year, the show awarded more prize money than in any time in the past — $3,330, including a $750 prize given in honor of former Fort Hays State University art professor Skip Harwick to Mic Jilg, also a former FHSU art professor.

The show, which is open to any Kansas artist, is as diverse as ever, featuring photography, paintings, collage, block printing, ceramics, sculpture, stained glass and assemblages. The juror choose 73 pieces from more than 300 entries.

“It really sets a tone for how broad the scope of art is and how many different ways there are to be personally expressive and celebrate that creative voice and expression that you need to speak,” Meder said.

Mike Michaelis, CEO of Emprise Financial Corporation, juried the Smoky Hill Exhibition this year. He has assembled the largest collection of art by Kansas artists.

“I was certainly honored to have him lend his eye and his background and his appreciation for the arts to this show.

“There was a lot of amazing work,” Meder said. “The juror could go so many different ways. He acknowledged that when he came to look at the work in its actuality after he had selected it from photos.”

The Spring Art Walk has 30 participating locations, many with more than one artist or visual art and performance art or music.

“I love the fact that our art walk really does truly represent this cross section of arts and artists in our community,” Meder said.

Styles Dance Centre will host Jana’s Campaign.

“People are using the power of the arts to give a voice to something else, to activate people for a cause and to create awareness,” Meder said. “Those are some of the ways that the arts are celebrated or utilized to bring voice, to bring awareness, to bring a visual presence to things that they are committed to working on through that project.”

The Hays Pubic Library is hosting The Collaborative Art Project with art made by FHSU students and DSNWK clients. FHSU professor Amy Schmierbach recently won an award for her work with the program.

“It’s fabulous. It is another one of these collaborative projects that she has been partnering with DSNWK for a long time with some of her students and getting them acclimated and connected to a world where it is both creative and artistic but also service-oriented,” Meder said.

“It also facilitates others to bring whatever form of expression they are capable of, they are interested in pursuing to their lives whether they are adults with some sort of disabilities or the most professional of artists,” she added.

Meder also noted on the second floor of the library, the young adults department will display the costumes created from recycled material for their Trashion Show.

“The way the creative mind works is fabulous,” she said. “So many people have different ways in which they express that creative mind.

“When you can see how that diversity is represented in a community like ours, that is when you can really, truly appreciate the role of the arts in our community — the diversity of the ages bringing that expression, the diversity of backgrounds, ability whether that is physical or intellectual to their art creation. There are no boundaries, and I hope people will see that Friday night.”

Meder noted a number of locations on the art walk will be open early or late, especially some of those on campus or outside of the downtown core.

The Sternberg Museum of Natural History will have free admission between 4 and 6 p.m. to see “Art & the Animal,” the 58th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Animal Artists.

BriefSpace and Grow Hays have invited the community to their new space and will be open from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

“They are featuring the beautiful Kansas photography of Jessi Jacobs,” Meder said. “She is a very good photographer, and this is basically celebrating the visual majesty of Kansas.”

Three FHSU exhibits will also be opening early — “Introspective,” by BFA student Ashley Smith at the C.A.T.S. Gallery, Fatimah Alhazmy’s MFA exhibition at the Moss Thorns Gallery and the open studio exhibit at the FHSU Painting Lab in Rarick Hall.

Meder also wanted guests to enjoy the art walk’s music Friday, including the FHSU Jazz Ensemble from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Downtown Pavilion; jazz by Jim Pisano and William Flynn from 6:30 to 8:15 at Salon 1007 and 8:30 to 10:30 p.m. at Gella’s Diner; 80 Proof Alice from 8 to 10 p.m. at the Paisley Pear, Sunrise Biscuit at Breathe Coffee House; music by 809 Studio students at the 809 Studio; and the Community Acoustic Jam Session outside of the Ellis County Historical Society.

Meder encouraged street musicians to join the festivities. She said they could play outdoors as long as they don’t block the sidewalks.

Meder also encourages art lovers to come downtown and enjoy one of the Brick’s many restaurants or bars the night of the art walk.

“There are so many places in and around this downtown area that it can be truly an entire evening for you,” she said. “It is just such a wonderful celebration of who and what our community is whether you are a culinary artists at one of our restaurants or a visual artist or a performing artist or a poet and all of it you will find featured on the art walk.”