words and photos by Lige Menard
Like the call of the wendigo, something beckoned to me in the whispers of the wind. It spoke of going to the shore. Mother Ocean was calling and she wanted me to bring the children for a visit. Heeding her call, me and the younglings made plans for the week’s end. Somehow I wasn’t surprised when a couple days before setting out, my editor reached out with an assignment to attend the Bolivar Peninsula Cultural Foundation’s Spring Art Festival.
Akin to Gulfcoast pirates sailing fateful winds, we arrived at Steve’s Landing in Crystal Beach midday April 2nd. Hastily we made plans to spread, disperse, and rake across the festival. Baby Girl K-Bill was most pleased with her Princess Kitty book set, which she bought direct from the author, Nikalette Alanis. On the literary tip, I scored personally signed copies of shiny bits inbetween, by Georgina Key, and Gifts of a Mother, by Sheri Ashby. There’s a magic to Georgina’s storytelling and shiny bits inbetween really captures that eccentric salty Bolivar essence, whilst weaving a tale of pain and tragedy captured… and hopefully released.
Scouring the festival we gathered various pieces of art which spoke to each of us in turn. A sea shell owl and bottle cap crab were two I procured for my own treasure horde, both creations of Janet’s Junk Jewels. However the crown jewels of our plundered pull would have to be two pieces acquired from regional artist, Michael Morrison. A French High alumni, Morrison spent many years on the shores of North Carolina, and traveled on a bus for a good few, painting every day. Landing on Bolivar, he’s made a base camp, and has never stopped creating. My daughter Julia now proudly owns a black and white Morrison painting of the coast that is haunting and textured with such depths. I have a Morrison that is a tribute to a Todd Rundgren song, Come on in my Kitchen. It’s a photograph he took of an entrance in Italy, then digitally glitched, then printed, then painted over. A man with a rotoscope key to my heart!
When the festival ended we lent donations to the Cultural Foundation and its cause of education and preservation of the history and artistic legacy of the peninsula. We carefully stowed our plunder and sailed on to the next adventure. Now matter how weird I feel out and about sometimes, I always feel like I’m amongst kindred eccentrics out Bolivar way.
