CROWN JEWEL continued from 45
He would then work on anywhere from seven to 10 paintings at a time, giving the paint time to dry as he built the layers of each piece.
“ Each painting has a variety of brushwork and texture,” he said.“ I wanted to give each painting a rich, finished look to show more richness of detail.”
An average sized painting( 20x24 inches) took five to seven settings of one to three hours each.
In all, the exhibit will include 85 paintings of the park, featuring 50 vistas, two lakes, three creeks, a few trails, a wildflower meadow, and various park elements.
Every painting in the exhibit will include a description of what is featured in the painting, the location of the setting within the park, and a description of the view Tim used including season and time of day.
All 85 paintings will be displayed together at the Brown County Art Gallery from October 2 to November 14.
“ We hope people even new to art might find a painting with meaning to them,” Tim said.
In addition to Tim’ s work, the gallery will also feature work by the early artists in a separate exhibit called“ The Long View.” These paintings will feature similar vistas, painted by some of Brown County’ s most historic artists.
During the opening weekend, there will be a private tour with the artist, a public barbeque with local musicians, and a town hall forum featuring Tim and former park naturalist Jim Eagleman.
More info: < www. browncountyartgallery. org >. •
CHAMBERFEST continued from 32
Artistic Director. When the idea for ChamberFest was floated, it was decided to hold it in Indiana. Andreas recruited Futaba Niekawa, a classmate from grad school who’ s now on the faculty at Jacobs, to join the ChamberFest Board as its secretary, and soon longtime Brown County resident Phil McKown was chosen as its treasurer. The group’ s close ties and relentless dedication to its vision for the festival made for an uncommonly comfortable collaboration, Andreas says.
Likewise, the choice of Brown County as the festival site was an easy one, he recalls. From its inception, the goal of ChamberFest’ s Board of Directors was to bring live classical music— typically found only in larger cities— to a rural Indiana community. Brown County’ s natural beauty and comfortable driving distance from Bloomington, Indianapolis, and Columbus made it an attractive prospect, he says, and Nashville fit the bill perfectly for its popularity as a tourist destination and its longstanding reputation as an arts oasis. By scheduling festival events with both locals and visitors in mind, Andreas hopes to see ChamberFest fit into everyone’ s Brown County experience that week.
Another way festival planners hope to make it attractive to all is through its very alluring price tag. With the exception of the Pacifica Quartet’ s performance at the Playhouse, admission to all events is free.( For those who want to guarantee their seats, paid reservations are also available on the ChamberFest website, however.) And despite the genre’ s reputation, classical doesn’ t mean overly fancy or stuffy at ChamberFest: flip-flops and cutoffs are as welcome as bowties and tealength dresses.
For those new to live chamber music, Andreas does offer some tips for making the most out of the experience. It helps to think of small-group performances as musical conversations, he says, so listen for the way the players move in and out of their parts, and how they react to one another. But mostly, he says,“ Music speaks to everyone in different ways. Just pay attention to what stands out to you. Maybe it’ s an instrument, or maybe the way the musicians look during the performance. There’ s a lot for new audiences to be intrigued by.”
Supporters from the Brown County Community Foundation to Target have signed on as sponsors, and Andreas says funding continues to come in.“ It’ s the members of the community who provide the real support, though,” he notes.“ We want to be able to continue to have ChamberFest every year, so we really depend on the people who attend to spread the word so we can grow and expand.”
More information on ChamberFest 2021 can be found at < www. chamberfestbrowncounty. com >.•
46 Our Brown County July / August 2021