JMKAC Art Fair 2019 photo by Kevin Zimmermann
Crowds and sunshine were equally plentiful during the John Michael Kohler Arts Center’s Midsummer Festival of the Arts over the weekend. The event was another welcome sign of emergence from the pandemic that put a halt to most such happenings during 2020 – a year which also saw the passing of the founder of the event, Ruth DeYoung Kohler. This year’s Festival was dedicated to Kohler’s memory, and her influence could be seen and felt throughout the grounds surrounding the arts center, as we heard from Ann Brusky, the Director of Public Programs at JMKAC. She said that included “Artist and demonstrations of all kinds, plein-aire painters, so you’ll see them scattered about on the festival grounds, we have strolling performers…in fact today there’s a stilt-walker walking around. Yesterday we had aerial dance happening, and then even the activities tie back into so many things Ruth, you know, did. She always wanted to make sure you got your hands in some clay of some kind. So that’s happening. Just those moments – it’s so beautiful. And even our shirts, so it’s really beautiful that it all goes back to that. You can feel it in the air.”
Many long-time participants returned for this year’s festival if only to take it all in again, among them, ceramic artist, musician and Sheboygan native Tony Menzer, who credits Ruth Kohler for opening many doors for him in the arts. Menzer said “I was in the very first artist-in-industry program when they had 50 of us out in the big tent. The art fair here has always been a great source of inspiration – and money, actually, ‘cause we did well!”
And Menzer, who has traveled the circuit of arts shows around the country, says that Sheboygan’s festival is “up there” with any other festival around, saying that the festival is: “…as good as anything in New York City, as good as the International Crafts Fest in New York City was, easily. Some of the same people would be there. As good as the Old Town Festival in Chicago. And these were the biggest, highest-quality and most beneficial, financially, shows in the Midwest. But this one, for the size of the town, is mind-blowing!”
And, judging by the size of the crowd and their enthusiasm, that’s a feeling that was widely shared this past weekend.
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