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Charity art pieces hit downtown Lake Geneva

Photo

Photo by Kyle Bursaw

"Starry Night Ride" on display on Main Street in Whitewater on June 3, 2009. Debbie
Brigham-Schmuhl, Courtney Trewyn and Whitewater High School art students painted the Bicycle. The piece is sponsored by Dawn and Lyle Hunter.

WHITEWATER — Sheila Brown of Elkhorn was so moved by what she saw, she felt compelled to find a way to help.

She first volunteered at SMILES therapeutic riding center in Darien a few years ago. She learned about the program, which specializes in therapeutic riding for children and adults with disabilities. And she watched the magic happen.

“There was this little girl, and I thought, ‘Why are they putting her up there (on the horse)? She doesn’t know how to ride,’ but she just smiled,” she said. “Just—wow! It’s such a good program.”

Brown wanted to do more than volunteer. She wanted to create something that would rally the community together around the cause and help raise money to keep the program going. She painted a carousel horse.

The “Prancing Carousels” public art exhibition and fundraiser features more than 60 life-size and tabletop sculptures painted by local and national artists and sponsored by local businesses and organizations.

The painted horses will be on sidewalks and in store windows in downtown Lake Geneva this summer. The pieces then will be auctioned off Sept. 19, and all proceeds will benefit SMILES.

“Prancing Carousels” follows in the hoof prints of the successful “Horsing Around Town” exhibition, which featured 80 life-size colts last summer and raised $168,000, enough to cover one year of operations.

The project again honors the animal that makes possible the program at SMILES, which stands for Special Methods in Learning Equine Skills. It also celebrates the center’s 25th anniversary, said Gay Stran, who helped organize the project.

“We wanted something that was a symbol of tradition, excellence and beauty,” she said. “Wanted to stay with the horse theme but expand on it and make it a special year.”

Selected artists had three months to transform the blank sculptures. Each life-size carousel horse stands 5 feet tall. Each tabletop sculpture is 22 inches tall.

The exhibition this year features artwork by four professional carousel artists, some of whom are experts in restoring antique carousel horses, Stran said. The authenticity of their work and the beautiful work by amateur artists should draw carousel collectors from near and far, she said.

Brown, who also decorated a horse for the project last year, estimates she spent 150 hours painting her horse, titled “Tiptoe Through the Tulips with Me.”

The body of the horse is covered with bright pink, red, orange and yellow tulips and rich green leaves. The head of the horse is filled with butterflies and other garden creatures.

Glenna Schilthelm of Walworth is participating in the project for the second year in a row to pay tribute to the good work that SMILES does for local children and adults with disabilities.

“It’s a really amazing charity (to benefit from the project),” she said.

Schilthelm, a mural artist by trade, has decorated two horses for the exhibition, one life-size and one tabletop sculpture.

The life-size horse, titled “Beach Beauty,” depicts a scene from the beaches around Geneva Lake: Sailboats on the water. People swimming. Children playing in the sand.

Hundreds of seashells adorn the body. Pieces of sea glass cover the hooves. A painted beach towel makes up the saddle.

The tabletop horse called “Water Prancing” depicts a body of water at night.

A raccoon and an owl sit on the back of the horse, and a swan, frogs and lightning bugs lurk in the water below the horse.

Schilthelm estimates she spent 100 hours on the life-size carousel horse and 48 on the tabletop carousel horse. Both have been complete for about a month.

“I’m one of those people that if you give me a job, I get on it right away,” she said. “I have to get it done. I put all my focus into it.”

Stran said the public art project has become a “community building event.”

“It’s the biggest outpouring of time and talent I’ve ever seen,” she said. “(The artists’) gift is huge, and their hearts are wide open.

“And once (the horses) are out on the street, it’s great to see families walking around with their map, crossing off all the horses. It’s like a treasure hunt.”

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More than 40 colorful bicycles are hanging from the light posts on Main Street in downtown Whitewater as part of the fifth annual public art exhibition, “Wheelin’ ’round Whitewater.”

The exhibition spotlights the cycling culture in the area, said project coordinator Roni Telfer.

The bicycles will be on display through Labor Day. The bicycles then will be auctioned off Sept. 26, and all proceeds will benefit the Whitewater Arts Alliance. The annual public art project is the biggest fundraiser for the nonprofit arts organization.

Each year, participating artists have seven months to transform the blank figures using media such as paint, mosaic tiles, glass, fabric and paper-mâché.

This year features bicycles. Past years featured butterflies, birdhouses and fish.

“We encourage people of all types, all backgrounds, all abilities … to get involved,” Telfer said. “We look for people to have a good time with this, to be as creative as they want.”

The bicycles are as unique as the artists who created them.

Some of the bicycles have riders, including a rabbit and a goose. Some of the bicycles pay homage to famous paintings, such as Salvador Dali’s iconic “The Persistence of Memory” and Vincent Van Gogh’s renowned “Starry Night.” And some of the bicycles simply reflect the beautiful scenery of the area.

Telfer decorated a bicycle this year. Her project—titled “Campus and Community Wheelin’ Together”—features local bike trail maps and the city and university logos.

She decorated a birdhouse in 2007 and a fish in 2005.

Telfer said the annual public art project offers local people an opportunity to try their hand at something different.

“I’m a lover of the arts; I have some artistic pieces in me, but I’m not by any means an artist,” she said. “But I’m able to do something with this. I don’t paint, I don’t sculpt, but this is a fun project to think about how you’re going to make it say something.”

Telfer said the annual exhibition has built a following, drawing visitors to the city if for nothing more than to see the artwork on Main Street.

“We’ve had people tell us that they now put a trip to Whitewater on their summer ‘to-do’ list so they can come and see what’s up each year,” she said.

Telfer said that fits right in with the mission of the Whitewater Arts Alliance, which works not only to promote the arts but also to make the city a destination for the arts.

“Art is a lot of things,” she said. “It’s created by a variety of people in a variety of different ways. … It just makes you feel good. And that’s why we encourage people to get involved.”