Return to Innocence, Kathleen Kinsella, Sharonville, OH, 2006 Perennials, Michele Randall, State College, PA 2006 The Festival Jester in a Caravaggio Moment, Marty Edmunds, Boalsburg, PA, 2006 Look Who’s Forty, Joanie Eyster, State College, PA, 2006 Peace, Lynn Heritage, Bellefonte, PA 2004 For Every Child, Radio Park Elementary School, State College, PA 2002 Facing the Sun, Joanie Eyster, State College, PA 2004 Buzz, Leah Donell Stephenson, State College, PA 2004 Diving for Festival Treasures, Marty Edmunds, Boalsburg, PA 2004 - The Festival has over 100 banners in its collection. Many of them hang over the Festival route each July.

Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts™ State College, Pennsylvania

July 8-11, 2010 ~ Children's Day is July 7, 2010

  



 

JUST FOR ARTISTS

We are proud to share information here pertaining to artists featured at the Central PA Festival of the Arts!

Mary Jackson: MacArthur Fellowship Recipient

Mary Jackson, a basket-maker and a regular exhibitor at the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, recently earned the distinctive title of MacArthur Fellowship recipient. Often called a genius grant, the MacArthur Fellowship provides $500,000 over five years in support of the recipients' creative endeavors.

For Jackson, the grant will mean more time to develop her modern interpretations on the traditional sweetgrass baskets she crafts. The baskets are renowned for their diversity of forms and the level of craftsmanship Jackson brings to a traditionally utilitarian practice.

The 63-year-old, native South Carolinian first learned the craft of weaving sweetgrass into baskets at the age of four. Her grandmother taught her the tradition that had been passed down through generations. Jackson's ancestors were slaves brought to the South Carolina coast from Africa. They brought the basket-weaving technique with them across the Atlantic. Originally used as harvest baskets or to sift rice, the baskets are woven with native plants. In addition to the traditional sweetgrass used, Jackson adds palmetto leaves or needles from loblolly pines to add color to her designs.

Jackson started selling her baskets from a stall and by the 1970s devoted herself to the craft full-time. Since then her creations have been added to the collections of the American Craft Museum, the White House Collection of Arts and Crafts, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and Museum of African American History, Detroit. Her baskets also have been hugely popular at the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts and other arts and crafts fairs around the country.

Barbara Houghton, a two-time juror for the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts and professor of art at Northern Kentucky University, clearly supported the MacArthur Foundation's choice.

"When I first saw Mary Jackson's baskets in person, I was stunned by their seeming simplicity of design. They are perfect objects where the complexity is made to seem so easy. Each has an elegance, lightness and character that is unlike any other baskets I have seen," she said. "The MacArthur genius grant is a tremendous honor and one she so deserves."

Jackson is one of 25 people to receive the MacArthur Foundation award this year. As the MacArthur Foundation's Web site notes, the awards are "an investment in a person's originality, insight, and potential," given to "talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction."

Jackson's baskets are obvious manifestations of these traits and the festival is proud to be able to share the news of her latest recognition.

 

 

 

  

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