NATURE OF CAKES EXPO & TASTING
Design Challenge: “Plush Patterned Pillows”

2011 Juror
Chef Franklin Biggs

Grand Prize: Best Taste & Design
Chef Kay Collier, Culinard

Best Design
Edith Webster & Michelle Witherington, Klinger’s European Bakery

Best Taste
Bianca Priest, Who Doesn’t Like Cake

For more pics from this year’s Nature of Cakes Expo & Tasting, click here.

WREATHS RE-IMAGINED

2011 Juror
Dori DeCamillis, Artist and Owner of Red Dot Gallery

Best in Show
Kay Collier

2nd Place
Bryant Williams

3rd Place 
Audra Kennedy

For more pics from this year’s Wreaths Re-Imagined Exhibition, click here.

On November 5 & 6, Moss Rock Festival (MRF) transformed The Preserve in Hoover for its 6th annual co-creative festival exploring Nature, Eco-Ideas, Art + Design. Thank you to all those who made the weekend a huge success once again. Your support, participation, creativity and vision are invaluable to MRF’s growth and future.

So, how many people does it actually take to put on an eco-creative festival?

• 45 dynamic sponsors
• 100 visual artists inspired by nature
• 37 eco-friendly exhibitors
• 8 talented cake designers
• 10 musicians
• 30 designers of wreaths re-imagined 
• 5 local chefs
• 11 workshop master artists & teachers
• 18+ Hoover Police, Fire & Rescue, and Fleet
• 9 festival shuttle drivers
• 200 students/sculptors from 5 elementary schools
• 70 students/designers from 2 high schools
• 150 community volunteers
• 14 wonderful board members
• 6-10 heavy lifters
• 8 jurors
• 1 media campaign design team of 8
• 6 enthusiatstic and hard working staff
• 1 sunny mother nature

Bravo and thank you! We look forward to another wonderful festival weekend November 3 & 4, 2012! 

If you would like to get involved as a sponsor or supporter, artist, eco-ideas exhibitor, designer, musician, or volunteer – please call 205-595-6306 or email us at MossRockFestival@bham.rr.com. Thank you.

Ready for a colorful weekend?

Come out Saturday & Sunday (Nov 5 & 6) for eco-creativity at the 6th annual Moss Rock Festival. We ‘ve got artists and designers intersecting and intermingling with nature and eco-ideas at some of these favorite festival venues:

• Artist Row booths
• Planet Project sculptures
• etc.Spaces design-build challenge
• Nature of Cakes Expo & Tasting
• WonderKid Studios

Plus, we also have the festival regulars like great live music, yummy eats from Cantina/Full Moon Bar-B-Q/SpoonFed Grill/Greek Tavern/Karen’s Candy Kitchen/Catering by LaNetta, guided hikes with Friends of Moss Rock Preserve into the nature preserve, geocaching, a family fun bike ride through The Preserve, cool souvenir photos adjacent to the Info Center, and peak fall weather.

The best part, IT’S FREE!!!!!! So grab your friends and family and get out in the great outdoors this weekend at Moss Rock Festival. We’re open and excited to host all you art & eco lovers out there – Sat 10-5 and Sunday 10-4.

 

Eco-Ideas Spotlight
Secure Destruction

Find Secure Destruction at Moss Rock Festival’s parking venue located at Regions Park (formerly the Hoover Met – off of Hwy 150 & Stadium Trace Pkwy).

What positive eco-friendly impact or outcome influenced your business’ direction or mission?
We recycle all of the paper material that we shred, which is ~ 350-500 tons per year. 

When can visitors bring confidential documents or hard drives for destruction?
Saturday, Nov 5 and Sunday, Nov 6 from 12-2pm.

Is there a limit for donations?
Please limit to 3 bags/boxes per vehicle. Thank you.

How can visitors find out more about acceptable donations and your destruction procedures?
Call our office in Birmingham at 205 453 1468 or visit our website at www.securedestruction.net.

During Moss Rock Festival, you’ll find Fresh Air Family at Booth 436 on the Blue Row. 

Check out more info about Fresh Air Family on the Eco-Ideas exhibitor page of our website.

What positive eco-friendly impact or outcome influenced your business’ direction or mission?
Going on wildflower hikes to see beautiful colors.

What current or future eco advances and innovations are you excited about?
Solar power.

How can people find out more about your company and what it does, besides coming out to Moss Rock Festival?
www.FreshAirFamily.org

Eco-Ideas Spotlight
Dixie Home Crafters

Find Dixie Home Crafter at Moss Rock Festival Booth 313 on the Orange Row.

What positive eco-friendly impact or outcome influenced your business’ direction or mission?
We offer products that come with Guaranteed 40% saving in utility cost! Our diamond barrier insulation goes in your attic and is installed over the existing insulation, creating a barrier to keep cold or heat out of your living space. And is guaranteed to lower your heating/cooling cost by 40%!

What current or future eco advances and innovations are you excited about?
We are excited about our newest product that goes directly into your HVAC system – and is a catalyst that actually lowers the temperature of the air. This product is  called IceCold. This product also can be installed in your car!

How can people find out more about your company and what it does, besides coming out to Moss Rock Festival?
People can go directly to www.DixieHomeCrafters.com or they can call us locally at 205-982-4002 and we will come directly to their home and show them what we have, and how it all works.

Eco Spotlight
Friends of Shades Mountain

During Moss Rock Festival, you’ll find Friends of Shades Mountain at Booth 449 on the Blue Row. 

Check out more info about Friends of Shades Mountain on the Eco-Ideas exhibitor page of our website.

What positive eco-friendly impact or outcome influenced your business’ direction or mission?
The idea that we could preserve the beautiful Southern Appalacian forest on the steep northwest slope of Shades Mountain influenced the mission of Friends of Shades Mountain.

What current or future eco advances and innovations are you excited about?
We are exited about the way new friends are responding to our mission to preserve this part of the mountain.

How can people find out more about your company and what it does, besides coming out to Moss Rock Festival?
Those interested in finding out more about Friends of Shades Mountain can go to our website: www.friendsofshadesmountain.org

Artist Spotlight Interview
Walt Stricklin

Medium
Photography

During Moss Rock Festival, you’ll find Walt at Booth 419. 

Check out Walt’s artist page on our website

What influenced your career path as a visual artist?
I have been a photojournalist for over 35 years and only went back to my college roots in fine arts 4 years ago. As a photojournalist, if 100 people see my photographs, I want them to come away with the same message and meaning. But, as a fine arts photographer, I do not get to put the symbolism and meaning on my pictures. I offer them to a world of viewers who will see them through different eyes than I do, they will overlay them with different experiences and add their own significances.  My composite panorama pictures are just a starting place – for me and my viewers.

What kind of work will you be exhibiting for sale at Moss Rock Festival?
I will be bringing my composite panorama photographs. These landscapes are meant to be more than homogenized, super wide angle images produced by a computer stitch program. I hand craft them in Photoshop, I am not looking for perfection when I put them together; I leave the all the imperfections to celebrate both my humanity and the enjoyment of discovery for the viewer.

Tell us a little bit about your creative process.
All of my pictures are planned so I can go beyond the predetermined proportions of a camera’s frame. I want to get rid of the limiting walls of that rectangle and  let my compositions take me where ever they lead. It also allows me more freedom for expression, showing what is just around the corner or what is just outside the normal frame. I want my pictures to have visual movement inside and outside of its borders.

How is your work inspired by nature?
With the idea that our environment shapes us as much as we shape our surroundings, I look to record everyday places and events that represent the universal truths of shared locations, experiences and emotions. I strive to make my images a connection between what is literally true and my interpretation of a given location. They are meant to celebrate the shared characteristics of people and places, while recognizing and respecting their unique qualities.

How can people find out more about you?
Current  shows:
thru December 2011
Jill Celeste Gallery – Atlanta – Past and Present, 4 pieces in group show
            Decatur, Ga (Atlanta Metro)
thru Novermer 2011
Durbin Gallery of the Doris Wainwright Kennedy Art Center and Azar
            Art Studios at Birmingham-Southern College – All in Focus, 4 pieces in group show
Coming Shows:
December 2011 thru March 2012
 - Nashville International Airport – Flying Solo, 10 pieces in solo show
Website:
waltstricklin.com

Image courtesy of Artist.

Artist Spotlight Interview
Paul Wilm

Medium
2D Mixed Media

During Moss Rock Festival, you’ll find Paul at Booth 305. 

Check out Paul’s artist page on our website

What influenced your career path as a visual artist?
It seems that all of it was pretty accidental.

When I was little, my mother used to have to separate my twin brother Peter and I in church because we kept giggling and cutting up. The best way for her to keep us quiet was giving us pads of paper and pens. These are my 1st memories of seriously drawing and letting my imagination pour out of my head.

Later, in high school I learned about Andy Warhol and his art. I fell in love with not only his paintings, but his mind as well. My brother and I started a rock band called The Warhols. 

In college I started out as an art major, but quickly became frustrated by my classes, so I switched to literature, graduating with an English degree. It wasn’t until after college that I found myself seriously painting. I was unemployed at the time and had recently met the Alabama artist, Mose T at his home in Montgomery, which was a truly inspirational experience because he actually explained some of his techniques to me. I was suddenly painting all day long, so I decided to see if my works would sell … and they did! So I just stuck to it! haha

Since then, I’ve allowed painting to sort of be my outer heart, so to speak … my “outlet” … Using my works, I can get things off my chest and laugh (or cry) out loud, thus letting my soul “talk” to other souls … It’s like a silent but very engaging conversation … I’m very happily surprised how it’s all evolved. Life is so playful and so utterly unpredictable.

What kind of work will you be exhibiting for sale at Moss Rock Festival?
Collectively, everything I’ll have at the festival is called “Folk Pop”, which is a kind of a stylistic hybrid of Warhol and Mose T, really … I will be showing a lot of “business beasts” (animal headed people), some “corporate devils” and a lot of environmental pieces with recycle symbols in them. I’m crazy about recycling. In fact, almost everything I use in my paintings is recycled stuff. I’ve always been a bit of a scavenger. haha

Tell us a little bit about your creative process.
Well, 1st I think of an idea for the main image I wanna use, then I collage a bunch of stuff (mostly found stuff like junk mail, envelope insides and things from old magazines), gluing it all down onto a piece of found wood. Then I draw the image over that and paint around it. It’s like a reversed coloring book, really but with paint. Then I ink the drawing and add details like dashes and specks. Last of all, I paint a black “frame” around it and then I put a backing on and clear coat the whole thing with polyurethane to “unify” the whole thing and protect it.

How is your work inspired by nature?
Material-wise my work seems to be borne out of a nature that we ourselves (as humans) have created. It’s made out of things that we’ve previously mass-produced, used and then thrown away … a 2nd nature, maybe? haha … My treasure is another man’s trash! 

When I have some of my “characters” speaking (in word bubbles etc) about environmental stuff, or when I incorporate the recycling symbol, in a way I’m trying to tell folks that things can be remade out of all this “2nd nature” stuff and we don’t have to blindly throw away so many things that we do every day.

How can people find out more about you?
My website is at http://www.pcwilm.com

I do commissioned work all the time (via facebook or email) and locally I’ve been showing my work at Jackson’s Bar & Bistro in south Homewood.

Image courtesy of Artist.

‘