The Yellow Brick Road leads to the Fayetteville square

Fayetteville is quickly growing into a destination arts location and perhaps the best example of that is the growing popularity of First Thursday Fayetteville, a monthly festival celebrating art in all its forms: paintings, clothing, sculptures, musical performance, and woodworking.

In a new move by First Thursday Fayetteville, this year’s activities are based on a theme each month. To kick off the month of August, the Walton Arts Center took the flagship on a Broadway theme.

“We created a yellow brick road, are playing a Broadway trivia, and giving a drawing for free tickets to the Jersey Boys,” said Beth Bobbitt, public relations manager at the Walton Arts Center, while wearing a Minnie Mouse outfit.

Outdoor musical entertainment was provided by bands Fayetteville Music Factory, Trout Fishing in America and Joe Giles and the Homewreckers.

Fayetteville Music Factory was the opening act of the evening, playing a set on the main stage, under the summer afternoon sun. The duo played covers of some popular songs, but also had a few Fayetteville-tailored songs in their repertoire. Trout Fishing in America followed Fayetteville Music Factory, performing silly songs aimed toward children, played, danced and sang along before collapsing in laughter when the band sped the songs up too quick to keep up.

Businesses on the square and a few on Dickson Street kept their doors open later than usual, offering discounts, free beverages and additional entertainment, hosting more artists and musicians to keep their customers around.  

Art galleries also catered to the audience.

Fayetteville Underground invited the artists to attend and speak to the crowd about their works over a glass of lemonade and other refreshments.

Janis Gill Ward, whose vivid watercolors don the walls of the Fayetteville Underground, spoke with guests about the inspiration for each piece.

“When I was in Fort Lauderdale, there were 10 paintings like this (female sculpture among landscaping) in front of a hotel,” she said. “I took a photo,” and they became my inspiration.

One guest, a friend of Ward’s, excitedly stopped her to remark on a particular watercolor, a human-like figure made of stained glass, saying that she remembered seeing the original model that sat in Ward’s living room for many years.

“My mother was an artist and she started me out (painting) very young,” Ward said. “I continued through high school and college and never stopped.

Janis Ward has been under the instruction of 55 artists over the years. She said that her mother lived to be 97 and painted up until two years before then. She has no plans to put down the brush herself.

Chris Weaver’s works of art each seemed to feature an overlook of a scene, with a sliver of an internal scene wedged somewhere: inside a brain, on a platform above a shoulder, a globe atop or one below.

His work “Hibachi for Bosch,” a cast aluminum head that stands open, reveals a grate. Weaver said it is a functioning hibachi that he took to a barbecuing contest recently and had to clean prior to the exhibit.

Photographer and Fayetteville Underground volunteer Adam Ritchey displayed his photographs, a selection of which subtly focuses on nature without leaning on traditional landscape scenes. Ritchey takes the majority of his photos in the Washington and Madison County areas and says he focuses on non-traditional rural scenes.

“I try to stay away from barn scenes,” he said, since they are commonly photographed by other artists these days.

Among all the live music and displayed art were food trucks and a beer garden, whose profits benefited the OMNI Center.

Sponsors of First Thursday Fayetteville are Adventure Subaru, New Belgium, Fayettechill, Sam’s Club, Walton Arts Center, Fayetteville Town Center and Kieklak Law Firm.