Columbia Festival of the Arts:
Artist Profile
Photos and story by Becky Legel, posted Oct. 2, 2007
Smiling faces of all ages and all kinds of art filled the courthouse square and surrounding streets in downtown Columbia Sept. 29 and 30 for the 15th annual Columbia Festival of the Arts.
Artist Carol Kent, from Jackson, Mich., was one of the visual artists at the festival. She works with wood, a natural medium, to create art that inspires.
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Artist Carol Kent sits inside her booth at the Columbia Festival of the Arts, left. Kent’s favorite piece is "The Lady of Lindenwood," which was carved in 2005. |
"It all started with the Boy Scouts," Kent said.
She explained that when she took her son to a Boy Scout Camporee in 2001, "They put a knife in my hands, and it all grew from there."
After the festival this weekend, Kent was going to deliver a carved wooden door to a family in Harrisburg, Mo. The door featured The Pinnacles, a Missouri rock formation with a natural heart shape in the middle. Pinnacles Youth Park is about 12 miles north of Columbia off U.S. Highway 63.
Although not from Missouri, Kent is largely inspired by nature as a whole because it is the reason she has wood to work with. The divine feminine, a representation of God in the female form, is also one of the inspirations to her work.
One piece of art that embodies both of Kent's inspirations is the Woman of Lindenwater, the first natural piece of wood she worked with. The piece, which was completed in 2005, sat front and center in Kent's booth this weekend.
She explained that before this sculpture, she had mainly worked with pieces of lumber. But when her friend and mentor Vic Hood presented her with the piece of wood, she couldn't turn it away because she was so inspired.
Because the wood was from a dam in Tennessee that had been flooded, water had carved out the back beautifully and there was no need to touch it. To complete the sculpture, she carved a reclining woman into the front. She said it is still her favorite piece.
Kent also works in stone carving, but most of her work is wood. She likes using wood as a medium because a lot of it is considered waste when land has to be cleared for agriculture. Using wood for her art allows her to turn that waste into something inspiring.
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Booths were set up outside of the courthouse for the visual arts fair.
The Tall Puppet walks down Ash Street during the first hours of the festival. The wind was the biggest challenge for the puppeteer, who said the 15 pound puppet was not hard to control once you learned how to do it. During the festival, there were interactive art exhibits on Ash Street for children. |
Fifty visual artists presented and sold their artwork at the arts festival. Artists included local Missourians and traveling artists from states including Florida, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Kansas, Michigan, Colorado, Illinois and Arkansas.
The Columbia Friends of China brought Mr. Kang Zhan Cai from Xian, China, and he painted names inside glass bottles as customers waited.
The arts festival also featured literary readings, storytelling and performing arts on two stages from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
A children's area lined Ash Street with interactive activities for the whole family including drawing boards, a poetry wall, a giant puppet, a man on stilts and a solar-powered rainbow tower that released clusters of bubbles.
Columbia's Festival of the Arts is the signature event of the Columbia Office of Cultural Affairs, which, according to its mission statement, works "to enhance the vitality of the city and the quality of life for all Columbia citizens by creating an environment where in artists and cultural organizations can thrive."
The arts festival began in 1992.
"Art feeds our soul," Kent said. "We can feed our bodies, but sometimes that's not always enough."
