(Salina, KS 04-12) Many say that the unique appeal of the Smoky Hill River Festival is finding the unexpected ‘just around the corner.’ That opportunity for discovery will be true at this year’s event, at which familiar and brand-new elements will combine for some surprising twists in Oakdale Park
On the Entertainment front, Austin, Texas-based Mingo Fishtrap will be a welcome return engagement. This Festival favorite draws influence from Memphis soul, New Orleans funk, rhythm & blues and Motown groove. Dubbed “an octopus of tenacious funk,” Mingo has emerged from the recent South by Southwest music festival, which draws more than 200,000 attendees, with performances at the Red Gorilla and Blind Pig. The group also will perform this summer at Stax, the museum of American soul music in Memphis, and at the prestigious Monterey Jazz Festival.
Also, Mingo Fishtrap is taking a unique approach to funding their next new album. They were recently a designated ‘staff pick’ on Kickstarter and already have reached 66% of their May 21 revenue goal of $25,000. Fans can pay just $10 for a pre-release download of the band’s entire upcoming album, which usually cost considerably more.
Brazen Heads, a debut Festival 2012 act, are a raucous, fun-loving band that kicks out high energy “Celtic mayhem.” Currently based in Arizona, this lineup of guitar, bass, drums, fiddle, keyboards and Irish whistles has seen no shortage in demand for festival and club engagements. While based in Boston in the ‘90s, the band was featured in the Irish Language Film “Out of Ireland,” which highlighted Irish immigrants who live and work in the U.S. Brazen Heads also has been the featured Irish act for major political fundraising events for the Kennedy family and for Boston Mayor Tom Menino.
In the area of Visual Arts, the 2012 Festival Print, a key project, is indeed a marriage of old and new. Mary Campbell, the granddaughter of Salina founding family Christina and Alexander M. Phillips, is featured in the hand-tinted print created by artist Debbie Little-Wilson, of Dripping Springs, Texas.
Wilson partnered with Salina Arts & Humanities’ Karla Prickett, who collaborated with Jennifer Toelle of the Smoky Hill Museum, and the Salina Public Library to find vintage photographs, journal excerpts, and other memorabilia from the Philips and Campbell families with which to work. From those original materials, Wilson created a collage solar etching featuring Mary as the conductor of a group of lively, young musicians on the front steps of the family home on 9th Street, capturing Campbell’s adventurous spirit as a highly accomplished, unconventional young lady of the early 1900s. Campbell was an award-winning sharpshooter, champion swimmer, musician, an active member of First Presbyterian Church, and an honor-roll student in high school and at Kansas Wesleyan. The original print that Little-Wilson created for Festival patrons and supporters is entitled, ‘And Mary Led the Band.’
Little-Wilson, is known for her etching, drawing and monoprint work that specializes in portraying women and their life relationships with a touch of humor. Little-Wilson lives in the Texas hill country with husband Ken, an accomplished jewelry designer, where they share a home studio. She also enjoys telling the story of cowgirls of the old West and of the woman’s suffrage movement through her work.