Art from a variety of media — including painting, music, sculpture and literature — was on display for the public to enjoy and add their own creativity in celebration of Ray Bradbury, a Waukegan native and world-renowned author.
Fiona Tranter, a member of the not-for-profit art organization Loopy Connections was part of a group with some of her colleagues aiding anyone who chose to be part of a community quilt-making project. They are one of several art groups working at the Dandelion Art Gallery & Studios in Waukegan.
Along with working on their own creations, the 10-member Loopy Connections’ fiber artists also teach from places like the Boys & Girls Clubs of Lake County, to working with individuals at the Dandelion gallery.
“We do outreach at events like this,” Tanter said. “We brought a sewing machine. People are making squares for a (patchwork) quilt,” she added, pointing to the partial quilt hanging nearby. “We’ll donate it when it’s done.”
Loopy Connections was one of dozens of art-related participants in the Waukegan Park District’s 25th-annual Ray Bradbury Dandelion Wine Art and Music Festival Saturday at Bowen Park in Waukegan, celebrating all forms of art and the author’s many contributions to the community.
Angela Marcum, the Park District’s cultural arts specialist, said “Dandelion Wine” is one of Bradbury’s books in which he wrote about a Midwestern city he named Greentown modeled after the Waukegan of his youth.
“This is a celebration of his tradition, our tradition and our summer,” Marcum said. “School just started. We want to show diversity in the arts and engage the entire community. It’s also a kickoff to fall and the school year.”
Ty Rohrer, the cultural arts manager and a historian, is in his 19th year with the Park District. He said Bradbury was on hand for the initial festival 25 years ago, giving “his blessing to the day named for him.”
While the more than 600 people at the festival were doing group projects, talking to artists who were displaying their work and dining courtesy of several food trucks, they were also watching dance and listening to music from six performing artists, including singer Jessica Brown.
Singing a variety of melodies, Brown is a Waukegan native who now lives in Winthrop Harbor. She said it is “important to share our music” as she sang and played her guitar for 90 minutes.
Other people were enjoying a picnic lunch and the music, like John Robinson and his daughter, Grace. She said she liked the music because it was “pretty,” and her father gave a nod to the eats.
“It’s really nice listening to the live music,” he said. “ The empanadas aren’t bad either.”
Dandelion Gallery had its own booth at the festival. Deanna Cruz, the organization’s co-founder and president, said in an email that the not-for-profit is, “committed to helping artists thrive in making a creative difference in our communities.”
“Our primary objective is to empower artists, facilitating their growth and fostering significant creative contributions within our communities that unite, empower, and cultivate the good in us,” Cruz said in the email.
Vallerie Von Rubio makes a collection of art which she sells at different events around the community in addition to the festival, like the monthly Art Wauk in downtown Waukegan. She has one primary goal.
“I want to make people smile,” she said.
Celebrating forms of literature, the Waukegan Township Democrats were giving away banned books. Martha Bayne said they were giving people either banned books, or books on bannable topics “like Black history or women’s rights.”
Joining people from the local art world was a group telling people about the piping plovers, who return to the dunes at the Waukegan beach each summer to mate. Carolyn Lueck, the president of the Lake County Audubon Society, talked about the return of Pepper and Blaze.
Lueck said this year the couple’s chicks were given names — Ray, Dandelion, Benny (for Jack Benny) and Genesee (named for the theater) — with a Waukegan artistic bent. She remains amazed how a female who winters in North Carolina and a male who returns from Florida find each other each year in Waukegan.
“It’s unexplainable,” she said.
