Maddie Shannon / The Collegian

Artwork caters to all tastes

As one of Clovis’ most popular city fairs, this year’s ClovisFest over the past weekend featured the work of five artists in a wide-ranging collection of pen-and-ink drawings, photographs and deco-phaged woodwork.

The owner of Aquarius Artwork, Vyladas Johnson, used wooden grape-drying racks in his deco-phaged artwork. He used the racks to display old posters of popular figures like Marilyn Monroe, The Beatles and Michael Jackson.

“I used recycled grape drying racks to display the posters, which I applied with high-quality wallpaper adhesive,” said Johnson. “The finished product gets this textured look from the lacquer I apply once the poster is on there.”

Johnson’s deco-phaged woodwork, most of which display public figures and images that are widely recognized, presents the viewer with a unique approach to art. Canvas and paper give way to a new method of presenting art, and the vintage texture of the wood ties in well with the vintage look of the older posters of Michael Jackson and Marilyn Monroe.

“They used to use the wooden grape-drying racks in vineyards back in the day,” said Johnson. “They stopped using this process a while back, so most local vineyards have all of these old racks that are 40 or 50 years old.”

Michael Ambrose displayed his collection of photographs featuring the high region of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, southern Utah and the central California coast.

“In my photographs, I like to capture the essence of the place,” said Ambrose. “I want my work to portray a real sense of place, and pieces like that happen when I pre-visualize the photograph.”

Ambrose’s work exudes beautiful images that strongly feature weather and light. One of the best pieces in his collection is titled “Aspens, Eastern Sierra,” and captures a section of the woods where the leaves of Aspen trees are changing colors for the autumn season. The vibrant yellow hue Ambrose captured is a stunning image of the Sierra Nevadas during the fall. The shadow on the ground contrasted with the sunlight on the tops of the trees, presents a nice juxtaposition and sense of balance. His sense of lighting in his photographs makes his work unique from most other landscape photographers’ images.

The work of Gregg Visintainer, by contrast, presents a form of art very different from what most art fans have seen before.

“I basically do pen-and-ink artwork,” said Visintainer. “At a distance, every piece seems to have a main image, but on closer look you see images and words hidden inside that have some connection to the main idea of the piece.”

Visintainer came up with the idea to include smaller details inside a larger picture when he was in high school. “I was 16 years old at the time,” he said. “Instead of taking notes, I was a doodler.”

The most striking pieces in Visintainer’s collection features American heroes, which from a distance portrays the American flag and the dark silhouettes of soldiers, but upon closer inspection contain words and smaller sketches that feature American sentiment.

“Those are the ones that sell the most,” said Visintainer.

The most unique work at the fair was the photographs of Don Schimmel, whose collection portrays a western lifestyle with striking images of cowboys, horses,and dusty, dry landscapes.

The striking photograph titled “Stallion Spirit” is a simple, black-and-white picture of a horse’s face. The element that separates it from the rest of the collection is the use of light on the horse’s face, which is made brighter by the lack of color in the picture. The horse’s eyes seem to be looking past the frame, but the cloudiness in the horse’s eyes contrast with the sharpness of the light. The simplicity of the piece makes it the most memorable in the entire collection.

All the featured artist collections portray their subjects in very different frames, lights and mediums, and despite the differences in each artists’ collections the artistry exuded by each collection caters to audiences of varying tastes. Though not an art fair in and of itself, ClovisFest featured fantastic artists with thoroughly enjoyable work.