A handful of artists drew a small group to the Arts Council of Dickinson County’s Arts and Ales party Saturday afternoon. Attendees skilled live tunes, craft beer, foodstuff and area art.
Travis Marak was among the artists taking section. He experienced a number of paintings and prints on hand. It was Marak’s very first time taking portion in an artwork show, he mentioned.
He has been doing art his complete life, but started off painting about two yrs back as a sort of treatment.
“I was going by some things again when I lived in Montana and just picked up a brush and started heading. I moved below about a year back and just have not stopped,” he explained. “I kind of have to retain executing it now — I acquired sucked in.”
Marak stated he is impressed by what ever is heading on in his lifetime at the time.
“If I price terrible, I go paint,” he reported. “If I feel very good, I go paint. And I hardly ever really know what’s heading to come out of it. Occasionally they are actually depressing. Often they are definitely vibrant and happy. It’s just variety of some thing I will need to do, I guess.”
Marak has experimented with several kinds of painting, together with a brushless style where he just drips paint on canvas and ideas it to make the paint go exactly where he wants.
“Sometimes they appear out good, in some cases it just turns into a blob of black and whatsoever,” he mentioned. “Everything I do, I try to do it distinct than everyone else.”
He takes advantage of liquor drinking water to insert bubbling effects to his paintings.
Marak spends on regular about 10 several hours on a one paining.
“I get the job done quickly but then I enable it dry,” he stated. “I go in to do tiny touches and I keep putting in small specifics above and around. A thing like that may well consider 6 hours, but it might be spread out around a couple months.”
He introduced a vast selection of paintings to the occasion Saturday afternoon, including total-on paintings on canvas, considerably less highly-priced prints and lesser objects this kind of as espresso mugs and stickers with his art on them.
He hoped to use Saturday’s celebration to attain consideration for his artwork. He recently established up his website at www.theartofm.com and reported that — if nothing at all else — he desired to hand out some business cards and get his identify out there as a result of the event.
Artist Jill Richardson also experienced a booth at the event.
She’s been performing art “forever” but started off using liquor ink to make summary, ethereal paintings a couple months back.
“I like how free it is and all the various hues and how you can crack the colors down and how they blend and match and react with just about every other,” she mentioned. “It’s just seriously kind of ethereal.”
Richardson claimed she just picked a established of shades and enable the paint do its point and often surprises herself when she’s accomplished.
“It form of has a brain of its have,” Richardson explained. “It just will come to daily life as it goes. I liken it to going downhill 90 miles an hour in a car or truck with no brakes. It has its personal thoughts. I can handle it somewhat but it is most a no cost factor — it just evolves.”
She chose to choose part in Arts and Ales by her relationship with arts council Director Sam Geissenger, who invited her to get aspect.
Geissenger, for her component, hoped to get the occasion off the floor.
“We’re having folks transferring in — they’re strolling in,” she explained. “We’re hoping to see a nice crowd come and assist (neighborhood artists).”
Joe Morrison assisted organize the craft beer facet of the celebration.
Several (however not all) of the beers on tap Saturday have been Kansas beers.
“I like performing nearby beers for the reason that it’s Kansas — you know, we’re all proud of Kansas and whatnot,” Morrison stated. “It’s just a telephone get in touch with absent to contact them and be like, ‘you want to arrive be element of the community in Abilene and appear sample your beers, communicate about them?’ It’s much easier acquiring these guys in compared to like a Colorado beer or a Florida beer — these fellas arrive, they symbolize, they know the city.”
He claimed he was in particular happy to be in a position to acquire part in this kind of an event in an agricultural neighborhood these as Abilene for the reason that so quite a few of the neighborhood brands purchase their elements regionally.
“All these guys acquire hops and grains and stuff in the fast space,” Morrison mentioned.
