Frankfort Artists To Exhibit Work In Park Forest

FRANKFORT, IL — One of the area's longest-running art shows is scheduled to feature three Frankfort residents Saturday and Sunday at the Tall Grass Arts Association's Park Forest Art Fair. The Art Fair is in its 65th year, according to a news release sent by Tall Grass Arts Association.

Local artists Margi Hafer, Richard Schmidt and Mary Ann Trzyna will have their artwork on display during the two-day fair, which takes place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days in downtown Park Forest at The Village Green between Western Avenue and Orchard Drive.

Patch spoke with each of Frankfort's artists to find out find out more about each's artwork and why they do what they do. Here's what you should know about them.

Margi Hafer

Hafer is a member artist with Frankfort Arts Association and Tall Grass Arts Association. She currently teaches watercolor painting classes out of her home.

Hafer has a bachelor’s of fine arts and a teaching certificate from Northern Illinois University, and a Master’s of arts in sculpture from Governors State University. She taught at Thornton Community College and Moraine Valley Community College. At Thornton Community College she taught ceramics and started a watercolor class there.

“I think my background in three-dimensional art helped me with understanding depth and perception on a two-dimensional surface,” Hafer said.

She retired in 2003 and has since devoted much of her time to her artwork and her grandchildren, she said.

What does art mean to her?

“Everything,” Hafer said. “I’ve been creating art ever since I was a little girl. I wanted to go to college to become an artist, and my parents would have preferred if I was a nurse or a secretary. But they said, ‘If you want to be an artist, then you also have to be a teacher. So, get a teaching degree.’”

Richard Schmidt

Schmidt has been participating in The Park Forest Art Fair since 1990. Originally from New York, Schmidt moved to Illinois in 1987. He worked as a paint chemist for nearly 50 years.

He is involved in juried shows in Park Forest, Chicago, Oak Park, Homewood, Wheaton, Tinley Park, Frankfort, St. Charles, and Griffith, Indiana, among others.

Schmidt said he’s enjoyed his more than three decades as a featured artist at the Park Forest Art Fair.

“It’s a wonderful place. I feel at home there,” he said. “There are a lot of artists there I’ve gotten to know over the years who I wouldn’t ever have gotten to know if I hadn’t been a part of Tall Grass Arts Association.”

Schmidt works in oils and watercolors. He said he sees “spiritual significance in the density and feel of matter. There is something timeless, immortal about it — whether a rock, tree, water, a bowl of fruit or an old barn falling down on itself. These things have texture, dimension and a soul.”

He said his artwork is an extension of himself.

“I always look for color. I love color,” he said. “For me to paint a scene, I have to be in that somehow or another. It’s just something that hits me and I have to try to paint it. I don’t always succeed, but I try to do it.”

Mary Ann Trzyna

Trzyna first became involved with Tall Grass Arts Association about 11 years ago. She had been practicing life drawing in Chicago at Palette and Chisel Academy of Fine Arts when she heard of a life drawing workshop at Tall Grass.

“Of course, [Tall Grass] is much closer and convenient, so I started going there,” she said. “I learned about the gallery and met a few more artists, which was very nice because it was the first time I started meeting local artists.”

Trzyna has worked as a freelance graphic designer for the past 16 years. She said her work in graphic design and her artwork in pastels and oils are complimentary.

“Both require a visual harmony, a balance," she said. "You have to be able to lead a viewer’s eye, whether it be through a document, like a brochure, you want to lead them where you want the eye to go. When you look at a painting, you want them to stand in front of a painting and want to look around it.”

There is one big difference, though.

“When I do a painting, I do a painting of what exactly what I want to do a painting of,” she said. “But, when I do the design work I have to please the client and make somebody else's look and design.”

Trzyna started college at the University of Illinois Chicago with a major in the sciences, but moved into the arts field so she could get into some painting classes that were difficult for non-art majors to get into, and eventually earned a degree in studio arts.

“I don’t think [science and art] are as far apart as some people seem to say,” she said. “I think that both scientists and artists are very creative, unique thinkers.”

For more information on the Park Forest Art Fair, including a full lineup of additional entertainment scheduled to take place, visit the Tall Grass Arts Association website.

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