Winter Carnival Recap

Roy Staab & Collaborators during YouSnow

Members and newcomers visited Lynden on Saturday for our first Winter Carnival.

Eddee Daniel was the first to post on his blog about the event (the post includes some wonderful pictures).

Jeremy Stepien and Jenni Groot had the studio ready by 10 am for a day’s worth of art activities (people of a variety of ages were still making candles well after studio closing time at 4 pm). John Riepenhoff helped the YouSnow snow sculptors find perfect spots for their projects, while Darlene Lochbihler, Jason Housworth and Bob Retko gathered a group for their tour of Lynden’s trees. By early afternoon the watering cans and spray bottles of food coloring were ready, and people were painting the pond (and themselves) while docent Lloyd Hickson led a group on a sculpture tour. We called in the YouSnow artists and their helpers around 2:30 pm so that Emilia Layden and Paul Druecke could tour the projects and make their decisions. I spotted walkers, cross-country skiers, snow-shoers, and the occasional lucky child being hauled on the sled as I followed the judges on their rounds.

In the late afternoon people began to arrive for the opening of Inside/Outside: Shana McCaw+Brent Budsberg. We had been watching the artists, dressed as 19th century farmers and wielding a shovel and pick axe, as they steadily excavated the outline of a farmhouse, their shoveling punctuated by slow trips across the garden as they hauled out dirt and brought back coal. Just as it was turning dark, we all went back outside and the characters (you could no longer think of them as Brent and Shana) doused the coal and set it alight. They stood in the center of their ghostly house, smoke rising and embers glowing. Eventually, they stepped out of the ring of fire and disappeared into the woods. The spectators moved closer to the coals, warming themselves before they returned indoors to see the work in the gallery.

We will be posting more info and pictures all week, including a complete report on the YouSnow competition.