Unique arts, ethnic foods greet visitors at arts fest

July 11, 2010 at 12:01a.m.

By SEAN BARRON

news@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

If your interests range from black holes to beads, chalk drawings to children’s art, and colored glass to concrete leaves, you would do well to pay Youngstown State University a visit.

That’s because YSU is the site of the two-day 12th annual Summer Festival of the Arts, which got under way Saturday.

The festivities continue from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. today on and near the campus.

SFA is a collaboration between the university and the local and regional arts community. The annual gathering is designed to promote the diversity of art in the Mahoning Valley, organizers say.

Perfect weather greeted the hundreds of people who flocked to YSU on Saturday to browse through the estimated 69 booths, and see and buy merchandise from more than 70 local, regional and national artists.

For those attendees who didn’t want to wait until fall to watch the leaves change color, there was a tent containing many samples by Joe Wasko and Tony Naples.

Naples and Wasko run Leaf’Crete, a five-year-old Jamestown, Pa.-based business that specializes in making imprints of leaves on concrete.

“We saw the idea in a magazine of casting a big leaf onto concrete to make a birdbath,” explained Wasko, a retired businessman.

Colorful leaves from hostas, hydrangeas, grape plants and rhubarb are among those both men use as accent pieces for oil lamps, candy dishes, table tops and other items, they pointed out. Each is handcrafted and cast from a real leaf, Wasko continued.

The process entails casting, hydrating, grinding, painting, staining and sealing, they explained.

Cherry, maple and walnut wood are the three signature types for Jim Shreves, owner of White Oakian Spoons of White Oak, W.Va.

Shreves and his friend Vicki Nutter sand and hand-gouge bowls, spoons and spatulas to give them a silky-smooth texture. Shreves, who ran a timber business, said he used to give the items away to family and friends, and donated some to various charities and events.

Shreves and Nutter make about 60 to 70 variations, but aren’t averse to trying new ideas, he added.

“It’s a hobby out of control, is what it is,” Shreves said, adding that this is his fifth or sixth year at the arts festival.

Selling and using vintage looms for custom weaving, as well as altering clothing, is a specialty Linda Ann Marie Bertanzetti enjoys perfecting at her Columbiana home and studio.

She calls her hobby “Lamb Handwoven Rugs,’ and “LAMB” is an acronym for her name, she noted.

Bertanzetti has a colorful assortment of runners, rugs and wall hangings she custom-wove with assorted wool, textures and cottons, she said. An example is a line of rugs she made in part by cutting pairs of blue jeans into strips, sewing them together and weaving them, Bertanzetti continued.

Her husband, Ralph, restores the looms, which date to the 1800s, and she sells them typically for $300 to $600, Bertanzetti said.

“It’s a hobby gone wild,” she added with laughter.

The human body and some of its contrasts and dualities tie together many of Lisa Zitello’s works.

Zitello, of Youngstown and a member of the Artists of the Rust Belt, often creates abstract paintings from medical photographs. Several of her renderings show, for example, close-ups of wounds to a portion of the body, yet are complemented by the body’s “prettiness,” she explained.

The main theme Zitello tries to capture is the “dialogue between the grotesque and the beauty,” Zitello said.

“I use the human body because everyone can relate to it,” she added.

Also part of Zitello’s works are hand-dyed “onesies,” which are tiny bodysuits for babies.

Many have “Youngstown” on the front to celebrate the Valley, she noted.

The two-day gathering includes a Children’s Arts Festival, which gives youngsters a chance to design bracelets, beads and necklaces, and to macramé key chains, among other things.

For those who want a temporary escape, several astronomy-related shows are on tap at the Ward Beecher Planetarium.

Also part of the event is the Festival of Nations, which represents 28 cultures and is intended to showcase the Valley’s diversity, noted Lori Factor, event coordinator. That section has entertainment, booths selling a variety of ethnic foods, and tables with pamphlets detailing, for example, the war and displacement of people in Darfur, Sudan.

Two vendors interested in nation-building are Jessica Persson and Ben Belgrad, who are members of the Youngstown-Cleveland chapter of Children’s International Summer Villages organization.

The international peace organization allows 11-year-old boys and girls with adult leaders to travel to many countries, Persson noted. Goals include allowing them to better understand people of other cultures, overcome prejudice and break down barriers, Persson and Belgrad explained.

“It lets them become a lot more accepting of those in the world,” Persson said, adding that CISV has been part of the festival for several years.

The event continues to grow, after having started with 28 artists, Factor recalled. Also included is music, poetry and dance, she said.

“It’s a nice uptick and shows a wide spectrum of art,” Factor added.