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Long Grove fest is a toast to art
"Bubbles," by Marilee Sarlitto
Long Grove Fine Art and Wine Festival
Archer Parking Lot behind Enzo & Lucia Ristorante, 343 Old McHenry Road, Long Grove
10 a.m.-5 p.m., Aug. 18-19
Free admission and parking
Visit www.longgroveartfest.com
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Updated: September 17, 2012 12:02PM
Summer may be winding down, but it’s not over yet.
Long Grove celebrates the golden days of August with its annual Fine Art and Wine Festival, Aug. 18-19, in the village center. More than 100 artists will set up in the streets and the Archer Parking Lot.
“We have artists coming from all over — California to Oregon to Florida and a lot from the Midwest,” said Scott Simanek, who’s co-chairing the festival with his wife, Tiffany Simanek. “All the work is juried, and we have work in all mediums.”
Another draw is the wine. “We have four companies offering about 40 types of wine,” said Simanek. “This is the third year we’ve done the wine, and it just keeps getting better.”
Kids, too
The festival will have live music from a variety of entertainers on each day and demonstrations by participating artists. For kids, highlights include a face-painter and an appearance by Art Beat Live, a performer who, in an explosion of paint and music, creates a picture as the audience watches.
And at its root, this art fair is all about kids. What makes this festival particularly special, Simanek notes, is that “it’s a major fundraiser for the Kildeer Elementary School PTO (which serves the village of Long Grove). The proceeds will help support art and music programming at the school.”
Which is one reason Marilee Sarlitto, a teacher and artist who lives in Long Grove, is delighted to be one of the exhibiting artists this year. “The fair is benefiting the school I work at,” she said.
In fact, this is Sarlitto’s art fair debut. “I’ve never been in one in my life,” she admits.
She’ll be showing her colorful, varied pieces of quill work, a technique also called paper filigree. “It’s an old art, but it’s becoming popular again,” she says. Though quilling dates back to medieval times, originating among nuns and monks in France and Italy, its heyday came in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Sarlitto explains that her art is done with a quill, a thin stick with a slit in its end. She inserts an end of a narrow strip of paper into the slit, then twirls the stick to create a tight coil of paper, which is glued to sheets of paper, and along with other coils, arranged to create patterns and objects.
Paper arts
“I combine that with another paper art — silhouette,” she added. So her work might show the silhouette of a girl who’s blowing bubbles Sarlitto has fashioned from quillwork.
Though she’s only been quilling since December, Sarlitto, who has a degree in graphic design, has already found another artistic way to use that skill. “I’ve made some beautiful jewelry out of corrugated cardboard,” she said.
She’ll show some 45 framed pieces and 60 necklaces she’s made especially for the Long Grove festival.
Also exhibiting at the festival will be Roshel Rivellino, artist and owner of the Rivellino School of Art in Long Grove.
Rivellino, who has studied many art mediums and ran her own fashion business for 15 years, will be showing work in mixed media.
