These Plymouth art show offerings stopped passersby in their tracks

Jaw-dropping creativity was evident at annual Art In The Park event

Considering my artistic skills peaked during second-grade finger-painting sessions, most of the 400 artists’ booths that lined the streets of Plymouth July 8-10 for the city’s annual Art in the Park festival created a sense of awe and envy in this failed finger painter.

There were a few booths, however, that – due to either their uniqueness or just plain eye-popping appeal (or both) – literally stopped me in my tracks and triggered a need to know more about the artists’ backstories.

Here are brief synopsis of the artists whose work stood out among the masses of creative-minded people.

RETUNED GUITAR STRING JEWELRY

Native Michiganders, Christina and Ian Lacey started a heavy-duty bicycling hobby when they moved to Colorado eight years ago.

“We were blowing a lot of our bike tire inner tubes,” Christina Lacey said. “Instead of constantly throwing them away, I started to make earrings out of them. We have a lot of musician friends who play guitar and they were constantly throwing away their broken guitar strings, so we transferred from making jewelry out of bike tires to guitar strings.”

Judging by the crowd that congregated around the Laceys’ Art in the Park booth, their unique offering is a hit.

“I think people like the connection with music and that we’re repurposing something instead of throwing it away,” Christina said.

When the Laceys secure strings from famous blues musicians, they auction the art made from those strings and donate the funds to charities.

“We travel around to shows like this most of the summer,” Christina said. “It’s fun because it’s something my husband and I can do together.”

LEFT BEHIND PHOTOGRAPHY

A change of scenery and a new-found form of photography led to Kyle Wilson’s aperture sweet spot.

“I moved to a rural part of North Carolina and this photography process that was unlike anything I’d ever seen,” said Wilson, describing the creation of Left Behind Photography. “These two things exploded in my head because in the part of North Carolina where I live, you still see a lot of rural Americana – old barns, farmhouses and rusty trucks – the kind of things I love to capture because it’s disappearing. I want to capture it while it’s still around.”

Using a process called high dynamic range photography, Wilson makes his photos pop off the paper or metal they’re printed on.

“It’s basically taking multiple exposures of the same thing – from dark, underexposed to light overexposed,” Wilson said. “It gives the final photograph more realistic light, color and definition than traditional photography.”

Two of Wilson’s favorite pieces feature an old service station in Florida and an abandoned public library in Memphis, Tennessee.

Wilson said his first trip to Plymouth’s Art in the Park was rewarding.

“I haven’t had time to sit, eat or pee, but that’s cool,” he said, smiling.

D. THADD ART

It wasn’t simply the high quality of Dan Thaddeus’s watercolor paintings that stopped art festival attendees in their tracks, it was the subjects of his artistic eye.

Everyone from Emmitt Till to Marvin Gaye to The Beatles were captured on the walls of the downriver native’s gallery.

“I’m getting a ton of positive comments,” Thaddeus shared. “I wish I was getting as many purchases.”

He smiled good-naturedly.

A software engineer by day, Thaddeus started selling his art during a pandemic-forced work shutdown.

“Coming out of high school, I wanted to be a comic book illustrator, but I realized that probably wasn’t going to happen because at the time that industry was filled with established, middle-aged illustrators,” he said. “I figured engineering would be easier.”

Thaddeus’s hyper-detailed paintings can take anywhere from 45 minutes to several hours.

“I just finished one of (Georgia State Representative) Stacey Abrams that took seven to eight hours,” he said. “I enjoy painting historical figures as well as modern-day ones.”

FAUNA TOYS

A native of Hungary and current resident of Sarasota, Florida, Zsolt Szabo has been making colorful wood-carved puzzles and assorted children’s toys for the past 30 years.

The unique shapes and colors of his products are enough to keep children from ages 2 to 9 away from electronic gadgets for at least an hour or so, he said.

“It’s good for the kids to have something to work on that isn’t electronic, which is why we’ve done as well as we have,” Szabo said.

JAN’S CLAY FLOWERS

If you didn’t read the small sign attached to Jan Dawson’s booth at Art in the Park, you’d swear the flowers filling her space were the real deal.

The Port Clinton, Ohio resident has mastered the art of creating eye-catching floral arrangements using clay – no watering required.

Dawson’s work dazzled art festival attendees, who swamped her booth how’d-you-do-this fascination.

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