Artful Magic Under the Flower Moon

Arts Alive - May 2023

 
A beautiful and unique art installation, viewed during the day and under the moon at night— for two entirely different exhibits. A special thanks to The Arts of Hancock County and the Inabinets for coordinating and hosting the art exhibit, Under the Flower Moon.
 
- By James Inabinet, Ph.D.
- Photos by Kristy Daspit and Gregg Martel

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The “Under a Flower Moon” art exhibition took place in the Dedeaux community of Kiln on Saturday, May 6. The exhibition, sponsored by The Arts, Hancock County and hosted by James and Margaret Inabinet, featured around twenty artists, each of whose task was to create and hang an art installation in the woods. Even though it rained nearly the entire day, most of the artists, filled as they were with the spirit and joy of creating Art, did not let the rain deter. They waited it out and worked in it to make this event a reality, and just when it began to look like it might rain out after all, the clouds parted; the rain ended; the magic began.
 
Myriad art-forms were on display. Painted gourds hung in an arbor. Jellyfish apparitions dangled from bushes. White guitar sculptures stood at the forest edge. Copper birds drooped from trees. Painted fabric dancers (a shout-out to Matisse) hung between trees next to a boardwalk. An orb of fish dangled from a tree. An upside-down display of flowers hung over others on the ground. A series of porcelain flowers were scattered in the leaf litter. King cake babies were caught in the act—living out their lives in a thicket. Lovely sculptured dolls hung in trees. Driftwood sculptures seemed to emerge from the ground. Block weavings, depicting the colors of the forest at different times of the day, hung in an arbor. There was even a forest “confessional” and a variety of performance art–something for everyone!
 
What makes this art event unique is that each installation is two exhibits. During the day, the exhibit expresses Beauty; we see it in all its nuance. At night though, that Beauty is obscured by the dark and becomes something else entirely. When darkness creeps in, the exhibits become magical. There, in the dark, the art becomes part of the forest, part of the dance of fireflies, the chorus of croaking frogs, and the cries of Chuck-will’s-widows.
 
In the end, artists only do what artists do. To complete the installation, patrons are required, participants of the spectacle, and they didn’t disappoint. Though attendance was somewhat off from past events, there was a continuous and steady stream of patrons – true art patrons perhaps – those willing to come out in all the wet, to muck about, to see, to participate in, art. For this and everything associated with this event, I am grateful.
 

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