While attending the Santa Maria Recreation and Parks Department’s huge annual Autumn Arts Festival on Oct. 3, among booth after booth featuring the work of local artists, arts organizations, and galleries, attendees can find Santa Maria Arts Council members scattered throughout the leisurely street festival. Some will be at the Art Council’s booth of course, but many more will be selling, showing, and demonstrating their own craft or participating as part of one of several local arts organizations.
Exclusive to the Santa Maria Arts Council’s booth, however, will be the one-of-a-kind creations by a handful of esteemed local artists, the collected endeavors made for the annual Birdhouse Fundraiser raffle. Each artist received a blank birdhouse weeks ago, explained Arts Council past president and Birdhouse Fundraiser coordinator Craig Shafer, and was allowed carte blanch in creating a unique art piece out of each.
For several of the artists who pitched in, Shafer said, the 3-D format was not their area of expertise—especially the painters.
“That’s the whole point, is you get some artists who are really active in the community and force them out of their comfort zone,” he said. “I think it embodies the intent and spirit of the festival, in that you bring your art, come out and see some fun art, and learn about art with all the demonstrations and hands-on activities.”
Each birdhouse will be on display at the Santa Maria Arts Council’s booths at the Autumn Arts Festival, where attendees can buy $1 raffle tickets for a chance to win a specific birdhouse. Artists participating include Dale Cornwell, Bob Burridge, Beverly Johnson, Craig Shafer, Linda Shafer, Hattie Stoddard, Jean Shinn, Marylin Benson, and Marti Fast.
The funds raised by the raffle are held until Spring of next year, Shafer said, and act as prize money for the honorees in the annual student art show at the Santa Maria Public Library.
“The people who come and see [the student art show] are just amazed at the talent, but seeing the kids come in and see their work in a public art show, which is something that has never happened to them before, there is so much pride and self-esteem building they can take from it, once they’ve gone through the journey of creativity and completion and they know the commitment it takes to make a finished piece of art,” he said.
The Arts Council’s full-circle approach is designed to shepherd the next generation of artists into the community with the help of their established elders. It provides the young artists with an example, Shafer said, of professional and accomplished artists.
In Shafer’s case, he had youngsters in mind when he created his birdhouse. A self-professed aficionado with puffy paint—the often neon-colored or glittery paint that comes in a tube—Shafer used his skill with the crafty bright paint usually reserved for personal greeting cards for friends and family to create a truly eye-catching birdhouse.
“The first thing I thought was, I wanted something incredibly bright that would grab kids’ attention so they would say, ‘Look, I want that!’” he said. “And then, it’s so easy for parents to say, ‘Yeah, OK, here’s a buck.’”
The birdhouses are raffled at the end of the day, around 5 p.m., Shafer explained. Winners don’t have to be present, but the only way to get a chance to win artfully crafted birdhouses is to buy a ticket. More information is available at the Santa Maria Arts Council’s website at smartscouncil.org.
Arts Editor Joe Payne has a spare buck. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 1-8, 2015.