‘Happy’ artist glad to be part of Grandview’s summer party
By: Donavon Campbell
Jayne Akison’s work room at her home on Gladden Road in Grandview Heights is both bright and colorful, snug and happily cluttered.
One must watch their step as they navigate the paint-splashed cubby for fear of scuffing one of the many handmade and hand-painted clocks littered about the room. It’s a space her children — Evelyn, 10, and Nina, 5 — navigate with a comfortable abandon.
“People always tell me my art is very happy,” said Akison, smiling from behind her desk where she was putting the finishing touches on one of her clocks.
She is one of many talented local artists that will be showing, and selling, their wares at the 16th annual Lazy Daze of Summer Festival. It will be held, one week earlier than usual, on July 18 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on West First Avenue between Ashland and Fairview avenues.
Akison paints water color scenes on clock faces and then, with the help sometimes of her husband, David, constructs shadow boxes out of wood to house the clocks.
She also enjoys painting things she observes from nature on boxes with acrylics.
“It’s kind of a three-dimensional painting,” said Akison, holding up an example with a cardinal on it.
“Lately, I’ve been pretty obsessed with birds.”
It turns out that, like Akison’s work room, the city in which she lives is quite literally peppered with creativity.
Of the more than 50 artists scheduled to partake in the event, a good number of them hail from Grandview Heights or the surrounding area, said Jeri Diehl Cusack, library community liaison.
The event is put on by the Grandview-Marble Cliff Arts Council in cooperation with the Grandview Heights Public Library.
Other Grandview artists participating in this year’s show include Nancy Kukla, who makes hand-sewn decorative dolls and toys, and Kristi Ross, Anne Holman and Brooke Berning, who all create jewelry.
Also from Grandview are Casey Vincent, photography; Jean Smith, who makes reversible aprons and bags; Aline Yamada, who works in prints; former Grandview Mayor Colleen Sexton, who will have her hand-crafted doll clothing at the festival; and Holly Adkins-Ardrey, who, like Akison, works in mixed medias.
Marble Cliff resident Margaret Kukura will be on hand selling custom-made Bobcat-pride T-shirts.
Upper Arlington residents Shana Keiser, owner of Fifth Avenue Galleries, and Patty Weiland, a former teacher at Stevenson Elementary School, now retired, are another pair of jewelry makers who will be on hand.
The festival also features artists from Powell, Dublin, Hilliard, Gahanna, Pickerington, Reynoldsburg, Galloway, Westerville, Plain City, Galena, Bremen, Milford, Johnstown, and Columbus, Cusack said.
But Lazy Daze is not just a local showcase. It’s a show that draws from throughout the region too.
Cusack said organizers are “quite proud” of the fact that the festival will draw an artist from as far away as Fort Wayne, Ind., this year and has others returning to show their work from Akron, Cincinnati, Ada and Dayton.
“It just becomes a community-oriented event … with connections to the art world outside of Grandview,” Cusack said.
Akison has been showing her work at festivals for nearly 15 years and that this will be her fourth time showing at Lazy Daze.
“I love doing festivals that are in my community,” said Akison, she added that she also showed at the Columbus Arts Festival earlier this year.
“I like the fact that it is a community event. It’s a chance for people to see what I do that maybe don’t know that I’m an artist.”
For more information about this year’s Lazy Daze of Summer Festival visit the Web site ghpl.org.
(this article appeared in the July 8, 2009 issue of the Tri-Village News)
