Art Event Planned for Blue Island

By Carol Flynn

The Pottery Boys Clay Studios annual open house in Blue Island is happening again this year on Saturday, August 22nd.

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The studio and gallery, located at 13201 Western Ave., at the corner of James Street and Western Ave., will feature a pottery-making demonstration with a potter's wheel from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m., followed by the gallery open house and sale from 5:00 to 9:00 p.m.

In addition to the crystalline glazed pottery that is the hallmark of the Pottery Boys, Glenn Woods and Keith Herbrand, the work of a dozen additional artists will also be on display and for sale.

Paintings by Paulette Stobinske, Tiger Lily Cross, Brian Garay, Charles Moesch, Bridget Scales, and Lillian Donohue will be featured. James Kinser and Robin Rios will offer mixed media works; Mark Vencura will have mosaics; John Giemzik, colored drawings; Gayle Barclay, jewelry; and Susan Larson and Colleen Walsh will show sculptures.

There may be some changes to the final list of participants.

Woods and Herbrand work out of two studios. During fall and winter, they are in Palm Harbor, Florida, and during late spring and summer, they return to Blue Island.

Once a year, they open the Blue Island gallery/studio to the public, and invite other local artists to join them in "celebrating Blue Island art."

For the third year, the Blue Island Arts Alliance is helping to organize the event and hang the artwork.

"It's become a joint project," said Joe Leamanczyk, the head of the Alliance. "We help get the word out.

"Paulette does a lot of the recruitment of the artists, and we help with that, and hanging the show," said Leamanczyk.

"We also help with the refreshments," said Leamanczyk, "and we locked down musician Louis D'Antonio to play out in front of the studio – he has a blues sound."

This event has a way of turning into its own mini-street fest, a nice celebration as summer starts to wind down.

"It ends up being a night of community hangout revolving around the arts," said Leamanczyk, "which is great."

Another factor that is interesting about the location of the studio is that it is also a historic site that adds a nostalgic "small town" vibe to the event.

The site is on the "Old" Western Avenue that led across the Cal-Sag Channel, originally the Stony Creek, for 130 years before the large bridge that now crosses the water on Western Ave. was built in the 1960s.

Horses and wagons, and later automobiles, used the steep, zig-zag street and a little bridge to cross the channel and connect with Olde Western Avenue on the south.

This spot marks the southern tip of the Blue Island and was the major way across the creek/canal for many years.

The Pottery Boys building, built in the 1800s, saw a lot of history unfold along that road. During the winter and in the wet seasons, the steep street was almost impassable, with horses trying to pull wagons up a road deep in mud or slick with ice.

The street was repaved in recent years making it more accessible for travel, but a visit there is still a nice reminder of the City of Blue Island's history.

This event offers art and history, refreshments and music, in a celebration of community. It's what summer in the U.S.A. is meant to be.