RTPI Plein Air Festival culminates in weekend sale
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The Roger Tory Peterson Institute's annual Plein Air Festival is ongoing right now, with artists spending their time outdoors across the area painting and making art of a place in nature locally that inspires them.
Following this year's festival is a sale at the end of the week, and one participating artist is encouraging the community to come out to the sale and see the final results of this year's festival.
The Plein Air Festival began Sept. 12 and continues through Friday, Sept. 18. Then, on Sept. 19-20, the week culminates at RTPI with the Plein Air Festival Show and Sale. RTPI is located at 311 Curtis St., and the sale runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days. An awards reception will be held Sept. 19 from 5 to 7 p.m., giving visitors an opportunity to meet the artists, celebrate the award winners and take part in an evening surrounded by art inspired by the landscapes of Western New York. Admission is $10 for non-members and $5 for RTPI members. A portion of the proceeds from every piece of art sold will benefit RTPI, helping support the exhibitions, programs and experiences the institute offers to the community and visitors throughout the year.
Artist Sara Michalak, who has participated in the Plein Air Festival multiple times, said she enjoys being involved and helping the RTPI with their mission.
"I am thrilled to be involved and support the mission of RTPI to preserve and protect the local environment," Michalak said. "These natural resources are unique to us and we need to do all we can to preserve them. Art is a great way to get the word out. It's such a great community of artists who get involved (in the Plein Air Festival) and we while we work independently from each other it's a great feeling of camaraderie that we're all out somewhere in the region, finding beautiful things to paint or draw or collage with in my case, and when we come together it's really fun to compare and contrast the results and experiences we had out in nature."
The Plein Air Festival really begins for artists back in the spring or early summer with registration, and then the artists begin thinking about the locations they may want to visit to feature the natural environment that can be found in the local area. Michalak said both she and her husband participate in the festival, sometimes working in the same general area, and sometimes not. She added they try to change the location each year so they can experience art making in different places with different environmental conditions, light and color.
A lot of practicing is done following that up until the festival itself in the early fall.
"We spend a lot of time outdoors making art throughout the summer," Michalak said. "We enjoy when we run into other artists who we know will be involved with RTPI Plein Air; we enjoy comparing notes with them and where they are in their process with preparing themselves mentally and sharpening their skills to create outdoors."
Creating art outdoors is a different experience, Michalak added, especially dealing with the elements such as rain or wind and temperature. She said the unexpectedness of it adds to the excitement.
For Saturday and Sunday's sale, the artists have to finish their work and prepare it for exhibition which means they have to have their pieces framed and ready to hang. This itself can be a challenge, Michalak said, as the piece is not completely done until all of the pieces are finalized, and sometimes with the time limit the piece could still be wet or damp or not set depending on the medium, meaning the framing has to be done very carefully. Once the pieces are framed and ready, she said the artists simply show up and the RTPI staff does the rest.
"They arrange the work so each piece plays off the next," Michalak said. "They do an amazing job, we're just thrilled to be associated with anything they do."
Advertising wise for the sale, Michalak said artists will talk about it with friends and share information about it on social media. She said they would like to see as many people come as possible to "share in our excitement about the natural world in the Chautauqua region."
Both Michalak and her husband have sold work through the sale to the public before, and she added that the awards for the artists also happening on Friday are amazing as well, recognizing the various mediums and art styles, and acknowledging the various differences. Everyone is featured in one way or another, and Michalak said there is a wide range of work style wise.
Michalak said people should be interested in coming out to the sale and to see the art to potentially see a place they see all the time in a new light.
"They might see a piece of art of a place that they go to regularly that maybe they don't particularly notice things about it that an artist might pick up and put in their artwork," Michalak said. "They may see something that an artist saw and try to express that opens their eyes to some of the gems of the natural environment that we live in. I think a lot of the public is surprised that we have so much talent locally and that the artists are particularly excited about the natural environment as something special."
Michalak said when people live in the area the natural environment might get taken for granted as people are used to it, but when someone travels out and about and comes home again they can recognize the remarkableness of the nature that can be found in the area. She also recognized some of the other local groups focused on protecting the area's natural environment and making it accessible to people like RTPI, such as Ever Wild, which used to be Chautauqua Land Conservancy, the Audubon, Western New York Land Conservancy, and the Nature Sanctuary Society.
"The most important thing is for people to understand that the natural world in our region is incredibly special," Michalak said. "RTPI and other groups are working very hard to keep it preserved and protected so generations beyond us can enjoy it and get the sustenance that they need from it like we do."
Michalak encouraged everyone to come out to the opening of the sale on Saturday, meet the artists, and talk to them about the places they painted and made their art for the Plein Air experience.
"Talk to the artists; ask them why they painted in that place," Michalak said. "The artists would love to meet with the public and share some of their excitement that they express creatively about the natural world in the Chautauqua region. If they can't come to the opening, the show is open for the next day as well, but if they can, please come to the opening."
For more information on the Plein Air Festival and RTPI, visit rtpi.org.