By Catherine Ellerton
Moapa Valley Progress
They came from all over to take part in the 15th Annual Pomegranate Art Festival on November 5 and 6. They came from Moapa Valley, Las Vegas, St. George, and even from St. Louis, Missouri!
Adventure Hiker, Mark Flintrop took a moment from hiking Mt. Charles to see a frozen waterfall and a 3,000 year old tree, to hike the splendor of the Valley of Fire and then to stop to see what a Pomegranate Art Festival was all about and to buy the obligatory jar or two of jelly to take back to Missouri.
The Clark County Fairground was the venue for the second year of this expanding event under the direction of Festival Coordinator, Jo Tame and her many Co-Chairmen and volunteers from the Moapa Valley Art Guild. Artists, craftspeople, musicians, dancers and speakers came together to celebrate the world of art in its many forms.
One of the many popular events proved itself again – the Art Attack. This is an area set aside for the young “wanna-be” artist to try their hand at creating a masterpiece. Whether it was a painted car, airplane, bug box or Christmas ornament they dived in – sometimes with both hands and no brush.
This year the art contest was held in this area where the young artist had an opportunity to use one inch squares of various types of colored paper to create a unique picture. The winners were: (6 years and under) 1st- Savannah, 2nd – Brock (sorry, we did not get the last names); (7 to 10 years) – 1st – Joseph Muhlestein and 2nd Aubrey Aikele; (11 to 14 years) 1st – Lindsey Folkerts and 2nd – Rebecca Muhlestein. It was amazing to see the many creative and different images that were made from these small squares of paper.
Once again the MVHS Culinary Class members came to prove that cooking is an art form and they did their best to keep the festival goers fed with pomegranate inspired faire.
It was a time of sharing as the local artists so skillfully did during the demonstrations of watercolor, oil, colored pencils, gourd design, acrylics and rope baskets.
The artists in the vendor booths willingly shared their expertise and stories – from Raku Firing, an old Japanese technique of firing clay objects; to a delightful discussion with Las Vegas artist Diana Petersen on her winning technique of setting up her still life photography in her bathroom to obtain the proper lighting; to the wonderful wood stacked puzzles where instead of the pieces being set side by side creating an image they were stacked on top of each other creating a dimensional picture.
While the festival attendees wandered about outside checking out nearly 130 vendors, sampled food and to bought enough pomegranate jelly to last a year, they were entertained by members of the MVHS Orchestra. These young musicians are preparing for a trip to Southern California to play in a Memorial Day Concert and to take part in some of the activities in that area. In order to raise money for the trip, they had a raffle and played solos, duets and trios (for two days) for donations.
If this wasn’t enough to keep the festival-goers busy, there was the entertainment area under the trees. Here the fairgoer could rest a moment on a lovely fall day and enjoy pianists, singers, bands, orchestra ensembles, choirs, flutists, speakers and dancers.
