Art, wine and fireworks!
The annual three-day festival and fundraiser kicks off Friday
BY BOB KEEFER
The Register-Guard
Appeared in print: Thursday, Jul 1, 2010
A three-day holiday bonanza of art and music is lined up by the river starting Friday morning as the annual Art & the Vineyard kicks off at Alton Baker Park.
The sprawling festival is the chief fundraiser each year for Eugene's nonprofit Maude Kerns Art Center; it offers nonstop food, wine, music and an assortment of arts and crafts from vendors.
On Sunday night, festival-goers can enjoy a free prefireworks concert (you still have to buy admission to the festival) by the popular Trio Voronezh, courtesy of the Oregon Bach Festival, which also is happening in Eugene this week.
The Russian folk music trio began playing traditional tunes in small European concert halls in 1993. In 1996, the group made its United States debut at that year's Oregon Bach Festival, and its three musicians have been regular performers in and around Eugene ever since.
Trio Voronezh will play at 9 p.m. Sunday, with fireworks immediately following the music.
Other evening music acts during the weekend include Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside on Friday night and Blackbird, a Beatles tribute band, on Saturday night.
Before the music starts, take time to stroll the festival grounds and sample the food, drink, art and crafts.
Among the artists showing their work will be Redmond solvent-transfer artist Cameron Kaseberg. Kaseberg makes a variety of photography-based art, using solvents that dissolve inks so that he can move images from photos and printed magazines to art paper or clay-covered board.
"Each of the pieces is built by layering multiple images on top of each other," he says. A single work of his might involve as many as two dozen separate layers.
Kaseberg began making the solvent transfers when he learned the technique in a college drawing class. "We never drew anything," he said, laughing. "The teacher gave us solvents, some newsprint and a wooden spoon and said 'go for it.' I was hooked."
Kaseberg's most recent work, which he will be showing at Art & the Vineyard, has used images of trees, crows, ravens and blackbirds layered in various ways.
A second artist to check out would be Portland painter Andrei Engleman. A self-taught artist from Kyrgyzstan in central Asia, Engleman paints what he calls a "strange but not scary" fairy tale world.
His paintings are bright and stylized depictions of everything from animals to landscapes. He's been exhibited with one-person shows in Bulgaria and Kyrgyzstan and around the Northwest.
Finally, drop by and visit Hawaiian jeweler Thomas Sauve.
Sauve, who has lived and worked in Hawaii and Tahiti for four decades, makes elegant custom settings for pearls and gemstones out of precious metals of various kinds. His work is also available at Eugene's Vistra Gallery.