Artists gear up for 2017 Charles County Fair
Coordinator creates space for “closet artists” to meet, play
“This one is going to drive them crazy,” photographer Addison Likins said, pointing to a large photograph leaning against his basement wall. “They’re not going to know what to make of this.”
Printed on canvas, the vivid scene of jagged orange and green hills before a deep-blue sky looks like an Impressionist painting. But look closely and one will see that it really is a photograph, taken at Aggregate Industries’ La Plata Terminal on Rosewick Road.
A retired teacher and journalist who lives just east of La Plata, Likins specializes in photographs of otherwise prosaic settings that take on a painterly quality. “I frame my photographs as if I was going to paint them, and then I take the picture,” he said, summarizing his technique.
People will have a chance to see examples of Likins’ work at this year’s Charles County Fair, which runs from Thursday, Sept. 14, through Sunday, Sept. 17, along with the work of many other local photographers, painters and sculptors.
Likins said that he originally took up photography as a reporter for the Harrisonburg (Va.) Daily News-Record in the late 1960s, but it wasn’t until he retired that he focused on improving his craft and producing art.
Not long after, Likins read a call for photographers to submit work to the gallery at the thennew Waldorf West branch library. He submitted several photographs and was both pleased and surprised by the critical praise he received.
That’s also where he met Gale Kladitis, the current president of the Charles County Arts Alliance, which maintains the gallery. Kladitis invited Likins to enter some of his photographs in the Charles County Fair, for which she runs the Fine Arts and Photography building.
“Gale has really made art visible in Charles County,” Likins said. “It wouldn’t have been in the fair if it wasn’t for her.”
“She’s got a lot of energy, and an interest and willingness to put her time into it with no expectation of a reward,” he added. “That’s what you need to have to make something like this to work.”
Kladitis, for her part, describes herself as an art appreciator in a family of artists. She traces her involvement with the fair and local gallery spaces to her desire to display her late mother’s paintings.
“My mother died in 1990 from cancer,” Kladitis said. “She was a very good artist. She used to hang her paintings at the fair, but after she died the only place her paintings were hung was at my house.”
“I went around to different places where she used to frequent and asked them if they’d like to hang her art, but they said they didn’t have space,” Kladitis said. She worked with the staff of the University of Maryland Charles Regional Medical Center to set up a gallery in gratitude for the care they gave her mother.
“I finally got to hang my mother’s art,” Kladitis said. “My mother didn’t get the opportunity while she was living, so I’m going to give it to everyone else.”
Kladitis said that the goal of providing exhibit space at the fair is to encourage budding artists to get their work in front of others as a way of improving not just their art, but their confidence.
“Some of these people are closet artists who have never really displayed anywhere,” Kladitis said. “Displaying at the fair inspires other people by example.”
For the fair, Kladitis oversees anywhere from 25 to 30 volunteers who operate on a tight and hectic schedule. Artists submit their work on the Wednesday before the fair opens, from 1 to 8 p.m. The volunteers are usually up until 2 or 3 the following morning getting all the art hung throughout the P.D. Brown Fine Arts Building.
The volunteers organize an average of 500 pieces broadly by division; for photography, the divisions are Open (all ages), Teen (17 and under) and Children (12 and under). Within each division, the entries are further subdivided into sections. For photography, the sections are black and white/sepia, color, and digitally manipulated photographs. The Open division also includes an “Anything Goes” section for work that doesn’t fit into another section.
Small cash prizes are awarded to the first-, second- and third-place winners in each division, with ribbons awarded for fourth place.
Likins lavished praise on Kladitis’ organizational skills. “Artists, we have our heads in the clouds,” Likins said. “You need somebody who can organize and get people involved and offer opportunities. I hope the other artists appreciate it as much as I do.”
Likins talks to a lot of young artists who get discouraged when their work doesn’t sell. “I tell them that art is such a personal thing, the likelihood of you stumbling across somebody who visualizes the same way you do, or loves things the same way you do is pretty slim,” Likins said. “The main thing is to get your work out there so that people can see what your vision is.”
This is the first in a series of articles highlighting things to see and do at this year’s county fair.