Downtown Bartow taken over by all kinds of art at annual Bloomin' Arts Festival
BARTOW, Fla. - Art takes center stage at the 55th annual Bloomin' Arts Festival this weekend.
"This is my second year there. This is only my second festival," fine artist Sheryl Marie Phelps said. "I had so much fun with it last year that I wanted to do it again."
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Phelps is one of 90 artists that will be displaying at the two-day event. Around half of the artists call Central Florida home. Last week, Phelps was finishing up a handful of paintings in her Lakeland home.
"Realism is definitely my thing," Phelps said. "What I want to be able for people to see is peace and the beauty that's all around them because so many people spend a lot of time indoors these days that the outside seems to get lost."
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Phelps visits many popular Polk County landmarks, like Circle B Bar Reserve and Bok Tower for inspiration. The high school art teacher takes components of different areas to create her work.
"Every one of my paintings has a bird. Life is something that's important in painting," Phelps said. "Even if you have a landscape, you have to have something in it that's alive besides just the grass and the trees that help make it more interesting."
Artist Cheryl Hughes focuses on life as well, in the form of sea life. Admittedly, the painter does not focus on realism.
"I will give them little personalities," Hughes said. "They really don't look like real creatures. After a while, it sort of just takes on my own personality, and I give them little faces and emotions and smiles."
Hughes, also based in Lakeland, was finishing up a smiling alligator for the festival.
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When Hughes moved down to Florida from the East Coast, her landscape paintings transitioned to colorful, fun Florida creature pieces.
"The best thing about me doing the art fairs and that sort of thing and shows is the people, kids, grownups, drawn to my booth because of the color and the joy," Hughes said. "That's worth it to me. You can win awards, but that's my award. It is just bringing people happiness and joy."
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Both Hughes and Phelps will have a couple of handfuls of pieces available to sell this weekend. They will both also be participating in Sunday's Bloomin' Air competition, where artists are given a set amount of time to paint a scene in real time.
'The funniest part is the anticipation of what's going to happen. What are the people going to be like? What are their reactions going to be? Are they going to like my new work? I think they will," Phelps said. "It's all the anticipation. That's what makes it fun, to be honest."
The Source: Information in this story comes from interviews done by FOX 13 photojournalist Barry Wong.