Annual event showcases artists, kicks off holiday shopping

Thanksgiving is still a few weeks away, but it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Waterloo Center for the Arts staff and volunteers are knee-deep in glitter and garland, setting the stage for the annual Holiday Arts Festival, Saturday and next Sunday (Nov. 12-13). Artists from nine Midwestern states soon will roll up in their sleighs and unload paintings, pottery, jewelry and other artwork for sale at the annual juried event.

Shopping hours are from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days. The festival is free and open to the public.

"It's so exciting," says Jacqui Komschlies from Appleton, Wis. Komschlies and her daughter, Chelsea Reisner, a student at Wartburg College in Waverly, are jewelry makers participating in their first Holiday Arts Show. "You should see my Facebook page --- 'we got into an art show!' For Chelsea and I, it gives us so much to be able to come home and make pretty things, then go someplace where people are coming because it's art," she says.

Komschlies describes her intricately woven, multistrand necklaces as "painting with beads. I take a picture and try to re-create that feeling and colors and the essence of the picture in beads." Her pieces have names like "Midnight Sky," "Seashore Christmas" and "Christmas Treasure." Daughter Chelsea works with polymer clay and other elements to create unique and fanciful jewelry.

The festival will feature 67 artists from Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Nebraska and Wisconsin.

Chad Forbis, a painter from St. Louis, will be returning for his second show. "I was impressed last year. I liked the feel of the show and there was a good crowd both days. The volunteers did an awesome job and the quality of the work is high, so I'm looking forward to it," he says.

Forbis' most recent pieces are 12-by-12-inch paintings of birds in oil, acrylics, spray paint, pen and raw pigments on veneer plywood. He contrasts their natural shapes against often rough-hewn objects. Some paintings are humorous, such as "Weight of the World," featuring a large bird perched on the shoulders of a small bird, and are visual metaphors for real life situations and sentiment, he explains.

This year's event will celebrate the legacy of Clarence Alling, the late former WCA director, who began the arts festival tradition more than 40 years ago.

"He was way ahead of his time in doing this sort of thing," says Maureen Newbill, WCA visitor services manager and festival organizer. "He thought art should be accessible, and he was an artist in his own right."

Alling died last year, but left a large collection of his own pottery to the center, some pieces for the permanent collection as well as pieces that will be sold at the festival through Friends of the Center, a group he founded.

Other activities include a ceramics studio pottery sale and fundraiser, featuring work by dozens of students and instructors priced from $1 to about $ 10. Proceeds will support the WCA Ceramics Studio.

Scott Cawelti will be signing copies of his new book, "Brother's Blood: The True Story of the Mark Family Murders" at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, and Brandon Brockway will sign copies of "Waterloo Postcard History Series" at 1:30 p.m. next Sunday.

The ArtHouse Cafe will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and the Phelps Youth Pavilion will offer half-price admission both days.