Page 90 - South Mississippi Living - October, 2016

2015
festival winners
on cutting edge of new art techniques
STORY BY SUSAN RUDDIMAN
PAUL FLACK of Smyrna, Ga., was trying his best to fend off the dampness and keep his
art dry during a rainy, cool and breezy Peter Anderson Arts & Crafts Festival when he was presented the Best of Show in 2015, courtesy of Blue Moon.
“You could have knocked me over with
a feather,” Flack said. “Here I was sitting in miserable weather, and they give me this huge plaque.”
He took home a cash prize and a plaque with a Shearwater tile, a gift from his first visit to Ocean Springs and participation in the festival.
Flack, 65, is an American folk artist in the emerging Who Ha Da-Da movement. His 2-D mixed media paintings are made of water- soluble graphite on stained Venetian plaster with airbrush and acrylic.
The fact his contemporary, colorful and edgy
art received the Best of Show award is an excellent example why the Peter Anderson Arts & Crafts Festival is part of the new art experience, Flack said. People are no longer shopping for
the perfect painting to hang over the dining room table — instead art has taken on a more personal form of expression.“People are now spending a majority of their time looking on their laptops or smart phones and around 68 percent of what they are looking at contains pictures of some type,”Flack said.“People are experiencing art in a different manner. If they get a tattoo, they are putting art on their bodies.”
“The Peter Anderson Arts & Crafts Festival
allows for people to find art that appeals to them plus meet the characters who created the art,” he said. “You will find a wider variety of art at this festival than you will find anywhere else.”
PAUL FLACK BOOTH #133
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