The Van Wert County Courthouse

Thursday, Mar. 28, 2024

Lots of activity at art center

By Hope Wallace

The Wassenberg Art Center invites people to walk the grounds and enjoy the shade, green space and meandering walkways. (Photo submitted).
The Wassenberg Art Center invites people to walk the grounds and enjoy the shade, green space and meandering walkways. (Photo submitted).

The Peony Festival is upon us. This weekend the Jubilee Flower Show will bloom within the walls of the Wassenberg Art Center. We love this exhibit, and it IS an exhibit born from the creativity of the gardeners who nurture the blooms in their garden palettes. We will be open the Friday evening before after the very first Fountain Park Concert. Stop by for cool, spirited, refreshments as warmer temps will be in town.

The following weekend our 59th Annual June Art Exhibit opens Saturday, June 13 at 6 p.m. with a free, public opening reception. The Dan Smyth Band of Fort Wayne will play. The Dan Smyth band has a jazz background, which has jammed into something a bit less mellow. They often play Columbia Street West, Country Heritage Winery, the Botanical Gardens Roots concert series. Members are: Dan Smyth, Ed Renz, Casey Stasifer, and Colin Boyd. Big groove, funky funk, jazz-rock.

Oh! Did we mention we’ll be serving free, grilled brats and all the fixins, potato salad, cole slaw and various ice cream bars for dessert. A cash bar will be available.

ArtReach has gone on break, our students did an amazing job and shhhhh, they possibly learned quite a bit. Our two Summer Art Camps are is hot on ArtReach’s heels! The first art camp is entitled Brownie in Motion. This super-unique camp will be held June 17, 18, 19 for ages 8–15 and will feature a life size, operational Brownie Camera. This camera, you can literally walk around in was built by Stephen Takacs, a lecturer in Photography at Ohio State University. He will be bringing this invention, a model of one of the first point and shoot cameras, the Brownie. This camera obscura takes giant photos and also serves as a darkroom. Youth can learn some of the basics of photography from the ancestor of their phone camera, using the brownie. Pinhole cameras and learning to photograph with just the sun will also be covered. You can read more about Stephen on this online article: http://www.lomography.com/magazine/278681-an-interview-with-photographer-stephen-takacs. Give us a call if you would like to reserve your child’s spot. Cost is $40 members and $45 non-members. Limited space!

Summer Camp II! Our second summer camp will be scheduled this year from July 21–23 for ages 6–15. We will be exploring perspective with chalk and photography, Native American art through by examining our Faces of Little Bighorn Collection and making artifacts. We’ll be making crazy illustrations by melting crayons and study children’s author and illustrator, Shel Silverstein. Ages 6-10 10–noon, ages 11–15 1–3 p.m. Sign up soon this goes fast! Costs are $30 for art center members, $35 regular.

A friendly papier maché rabbit and his wildlife friends were one of the final ArtReach projects at the Wassenberg Art Center.  (Photo submitted.)
A friendly papier maché rabbit and his wildlife friends were one of the final ArtReach projects at the Wassenberg Art Center. (Photo submitted.)

Please sign up early for our summer camps they fill up very quickly! We don’t like to turn anyone away. Also, needs-based scholarships can be made available if a young person wishes to participate and there are financial boundaries. Please contact the director.

The Wassenberg Art Center has paired up with Main Street Van Wert and are planning a dual-bash extraordinaire which will take place on July 11! Not only will we feature works by neighbor artists from Fort Wayne, we’ll be shutting down Central Avenue and pretty much taking over the entire block! Art from the Fort, which begins at 2 p.m. will showcase work from five prominent Fort Wayne artists Gregg Coffey, Mindy Penneycoff, Terry Ratliff, Joel Fremion and Gary Travis.

Also on that day, beginning at 4 p.m. five gourmet food trucks based out of Fort Wayne, will be setting up shop on Central with tasty delights ranging from Mexican, brick oven pizza, Cajun and cool desserts…why stop there? Music inside and out by Dan Dickerson and the Harp Condition, Van Wert’s d.j. Real Human Robot and later on in the evening, The One-eyed Show. A beer/wine garden will be set up and enter the First Annual Duck Derpy to win a chance at $1000. Duck sales are active, see a Van Wert Robotics Team member, call the Wassenberg Art Center, Main Street Van Wert or online visit: http://www.wassenbergartcenter.org/announcements/duckderpy.

Art activities for young and young at heart will be available and we’ll have various kinds of performers on every corner. Eats on the Streets & Art from the Fort, experienced new forms of food, fun and art. Open to the public and zero entry fee

If you haven’t heard of TOES they are known as a rock-n-roll band with diverse musical influences that range from the Allman Brothers Band and the Black Crowes, to the Eagles and Johnny Cash, The One-Eyed Show’s sound spans many genres. Within a single performance, TOES often runs the gamut of rock, bluegrass, funk and the blues — all the while maintaining an improvisational styling. The six members of this band are good friends, which is a chief force behind their staying power, which began in 1991. Some have been chums since childhood; two of them are brothers and two are cousins. Each member brings his own personal style and musical flavor to the table while maintaining the roots of their small town sound. This approach has resulted in very diverse and well-blended live performances and studio productions.

We are adding a drawing class on June 5, 12, 19, and 26 from 10 a.m. – noon. Instructor: Pat Rayman. The class will learn how to improve drawing skills and learn new techniques using a variety of materials. Materials required: drawing pad or paper, drawing pencils, kneaded eraser, colored pencils, ink pen and oil pastels (provided if required).

Our ongoing watercolor class continues on Tuesday mornings from at 10 a.m.–noon and the instructor is Pat Rayman. Persons are encouraged to jump in anytime and the class is sold in monthly increments. $35 for members and $40 for non-members.

For information or to register for classes:  email info@wassenbergartcenter.org; phone 419.238/6837; website wassenbergartcenter.org.  The Wassenberg Art Center is located at 214 S. Washington St. (former Van Wert Armory).

POSTED: 06/03/15 at 1:53 pm. FILED UNDER: What's Up at Wassenberg?