The Creemore Festival of the Arts taking place Oct. 4-5 will showcase 57 artists.
A sampling of the artists’ work will be on display at Station on the Green, where people can get a taste of which art they want to explore further at 26 locations, most of which are located in the village.
The third annual art festival is organized by the Purple Hills Arts and Heritage Society.
“It pays tribute to our local phenomenal talent and shows work the average person in Creemore would never get a chance to see,” said event co-chair Miriam Vince.
She said the work shown will range from the refined to the down-and-dirty.
The festival will kick off with opening ceremonies on Saturday morning, when a sculpture by Ernest Herzig will be unveiled.
Herzig is donating a new piece entitled Harmony to the village of Creemore. It will be installed at the horticultural park at Station on the Green.
The bronze sculpture, weighing more than 1,000 pounds, is a linked circle and a square.
The piece represents the male and female form, different but equal, a theme that runs through Herzig’s work.
“It’s not as much sculpture as it is a message,” said Herzig, 83.
His sculptures depict the balance of male and female relationships with a message of gender equality, inspired by acts of suppression and violence against women around the world and domestically.
“Sometimes you set out and it’s like a journey that you didn’t know where it would go,” said Herzig who splits his time between Dunedin and Toronto.
“It’s nice for me to be able to make a contribution to the town.”
Herzig’s work will also be shown at the Mill Street Art Studio during the festival.
Also at Station on the Green is Inspired, a show curated by local artist Sara Sniderhan.
She is assembling the work of 11 highly acclaimed Canadian artists that have very different but complementary styles.
About 25 pieces, including abstract, illustration, sculpture, mixed media and oil paintings, will be shown.
Sniderhan said the artists were chosen for the pure quality of the work.
“In different ways they are breaking ground in what they are doing,” she said. “They are right at the forefront. They are giving everything to their art. These guys are pushing themselves into the international scene.”
Work by Sniderhan and her husband Peter Mitchell will have work in the show, along with Shaun Downey, Graham Roumieu, Rachel Berman, Marco Cibola, Sean Yelland, Keita Morimoto, Gordon Weibe, Peter Rotter and Gosia.
Many of the artists will be attending a reception at the Station on the Green on Saturday evening when some will be speaking about their work.
Creemore artist Peter Adams will also be in attendance. Adams is the creator of the Detritus Project, an installation of found objects, at the Creemore Log Cabin.
Rusty licence plates, old glass jars, farm implements and other discarded objects found at his farm located just outside the village will be incorporated into the piece. Many of the objects have been excavated from backyard dumping grounds and piles of rock that have been cleared from the fields.
“They are a fragment of suggestions of lives lived,” said Adams, a well-known painter.
“In my work, I’ve always been interested in where the human and natural worlds meet,” he said. “It’s not about nostalgia. It’s a stepping stone for people to contemplate the way we use resources and our relationship with the land, acknowledging generations that came before us.”
The Detritus Project is about consumption, agriculture and history, said Adams.
“It’s about a lot of things in subtle ways,” he said.
While at Station on the Green, which serves as festival headquarters, pick up a map and tour the village to meet with artists on location.
In conjunction with the Small Halls Festival, silk screens of original concert posters by Lucas Gordon will be on display along the bowling lanes at the Avening Hall.
The Creemore Festival of the Arts runs from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 4 and Sunday, Oct. 5.
The reception takes place on Saturday, Oct. 4 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Tickets cost $25 in advance, available online, and $30 at the door.Admission to all other exhibits is free. Station on the Green is located at 10 Caroline St. E.
Visit phahs.ca.