Westfield art walk features flame-painted copper, pub-loving fiddler

From left to right, Author Jeff Vanoudenhove, of Westfield, chats with Katy Fitzgerald and Nancie Near during ArtoberFest in 2022.

Reminder Publishing file photo

WESTFIELD — ArtWorks Westfield’s annual ArtoberFest art show will return to downtown Westfield from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28, with around 80 artists, artisans and authors along Elm Street from the Westfield Athenaeum to Arnold Street.

For the first time, it will also have a rain date, Saturday, Oct. 5, a development spurred by the cancelation of last year’s art walk due to inclement weather.

“The biggest takeaway was putting in a rain date. Everything else, we’re pretty learned and skilled at,” organizer Bill Westerlind said.

The September date was to ensure there’d be a rain date available that doesn’t conflict with Columbus Day weekend or Westfield on Weekends’ PumpkinFest, which is Saturday, Oct. 19.

Among the local artists participating is Huntington’s Pegg Dragon, who makes copper pieces under the name “Dragon Fired Jewelry.” Her work gets its vibrant colors not from enamel or paint, but from careful use of a welding torch.

“There are 38 colors in copper. It’s a natural technique in which I’m just letting the colors come out of the copper,” she said. “What I’m doing is controlling the colors by controlling the flame, and the heat of the flame, and where the flame is placed on the object.”

Dragon learned to make copper art in the Ozarks, after she discovered Skip Matthews, an Arkansas artist who had been working with the metal for over 40 years. Seven years into the craft, Dragon makes everything from large wall art to “wearable art” jewelry, like necklaces, earrings, bracelets and barrettes. Shapes include butterflies, birds, dragonflies and, yes, dragons.

“If you can make it from cutting out sheet copper, then I can make it,” she said.

Dragon won first place in the jewelry category of this year’s Mattoon Street Art Festival in Springfield.

Her goal is to bring the natural beauty of copper to people and to educate people about its properties. Most people, she said, think of how copper turns green over time. She seals her work in polymer to prevent that from happening.

“If you could see a piece, you’d say ‘oh wow!’” she said.

She is excited to be at ArtoberFest. She noted how young artists are accepted there, and how it’s less expensive than exhibiting at the Big E: “It’s nice to have a street market, where it’s open. There’s no charge for people coming. There’s actually no charge to the vendors, other than the membership, and I think that’s quite phenomenal.”

Also at the art show is Chester artist Marcia Hendrick, who paints two-dimensional abstract art on canvas or wood panels, using acrylics. Although there have been many abstract movements, she doesn’t paint with any pre-existing ideas in mind.

“I start with paint on a surface,” she said. “After I go through that, it becomes a conversation between me and whatever I am painting. Whatever I put down before, it tells me what I put down next.”

The results of that conversation can look like anything. Her art, she said, dives into her emotional and intuitive side, incorporating her feelings, what matters to her, and how she can reflect her own existence onto the canvas.

“In the end, it ends up being things bubbling up from the inside,” she said.

For instance, one of her paintings, titled “Forgetting,” wound up being about dementia, represented by buildings shattering into pieces. Hendrick said it was evocative for her to think about the illness, the people in her family who have it and how they appear to “lose themselves bit by bit.”

Hendrick exhibited her work at ArtWorks’ Articulture show in May. People responded well, she said. She sold a couple paintings and engaged in much conversation.

She is looking forward to the communal aspects of ArtoberFest.

“In the state that I’m in right now with painting, I like having the ability to be out in public with my art,” she said. “Working in the studio is a very solitary affair. It’s really nice to be out in a festival and have people come by and engage with the art, and engage with me.”

ArtoberFest will have six musical acts in three different places this year — Elm Street Plaza, Circuit Coffee and the alleyway next to Blended Vintage Marketplace. Each act will perform an hour-and-a-half set between noon and 3:30 p.m. Artists will keep the volume low enough that they don’t interfere with each other, said ArtWorks Westfield Music Coordinator Tom Sawyer.

“The people we’re putting on stage are not high-volume, so the sound will be pretty well-absorbed by all the vendors on the grassy area,” he said. “There’s plenty of room between the performers in front of Circuit Coffee and the performers in the alleyway.”

One of those stage performers will be Katherine First & the Kitchen Party at 2 p.m. The band plays traditional music from Ireland, Scotland, Nova Scotia, and the Brittany region of France, as well as some bluegrass, Americana and original compositions.

First had been playing violin since she was 8 years old. For 20 years, she played classical music, until she heard fiddler Craig Eastman play at the Black Sheep Deli in Amherst.

“When I heard him play, I thought to myself, ‘he’s having way more fun than a lot of classical players, and I want to do that,’” she said.

Then, First went to Ireland and performed in as many pubs as she could.

“There’s beer and there’s people dancing and there’s clapping,” she said. “I like the informal, fun nature of life in the pub.”

Katherine First & the Kitchen Party consists of First on fiddle, Alan Belkin on banjo, Buddy Downey on guitar and Jeff Hinrichs on percussion, although Hinrichs will not be at ArtoberFest. The name comes from the “kitchen parties” in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, Canada, where people of all ages build community by telling stories and dancing in their kitchens, she said. Audience participation is part of their concerts, she said.

ArtoberFest will be the group’s first ArtWorks Westfield event. First has played at the Sons of Erin before, with Downey and in the group Dicey Riley. She recently played at the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton.

“I love events like this because it’s outside. Hoping for good weather,” she said.