Wildwood Fine Arts and Wine Festival thrives thanks to atmosphere, variety

Over the last 38 years, the Wildwood Cultural Center’s annual summer fine arts festival has drawn visitors from near and far.

On June 16, though, perhaps no visitors made a shorter trip to the latest edition of the event in Mentor than Lisa and Mike Piczer.

“We live across the street, on Royal Oak Court,” Lisa said.

Although Lisa and her husband have resided on Royal Oak for five years, June 16 marked the first time they’ve attended what is now known as the Wildwood Fine Arts and Wine Festival.

“It’s nice to see all the different types of art, and mixing in wine also is a good thing,” Mike said.

The Piczers joined with many others in strolling the grounds of the Wildwood Estate on Little Mountain Road, checking out the creations of about 40 artisans, sampling the offerings of food and wine vendors, and enjoying the sounds of musicians who rounded out the event.

This year, the festival featured works that included paintings, jewelry, metals, basketry, glass and photography.

One vendor participating for the first time at Wildwood Fine Arts and Wine Festival was Mike Semik of Willoughby Hills, a designer for Barrel and Vine Designs.

Barrel and Vine Designs, which Semik operates with his wife, Debbie, produces a variety of items from wood that have some relation to wine bottles or wine corks.

For instance, they make garden markers: wooden sticks topped with wine corks that show the names of different vegetables people grow in local gardens.

“Instead of throwing out the corks, we repurpose them,” Semik said.

Another item that seemed to catch the attention of festival visitors was a wooden dresser that Semik fashioned into a multi-level storage container for wine bottles.

For lovers of more traditional art, Linda Merchant of Silver Heron Studios in Mentor was displaying and selling her oil paintings at the festival.

“I’ve known about Wildwood since I was a kid,” she said. “It seems like a good place to show my work.”

In addition to her paintings of subjects such as wildlife and flowers, Merchant exhibited jewelry she’s made using coins from places such as Colombia, Canada and the Bahamas.

Festival visitors who wanted to see an artist at work were treated to a blacksmithing demonstration by Tim Cunningham, owner of the Urban Forge.

A Richmond Heights resident, Cunningham has worked as a blacksmith for 15 years. At around noon, Cunningham’s vending area doubled as a work space as he designed a Mason jar candle holder. He placed a steel portion of the candle holder into a gas power forge, then took his creation out and began to shape it with a hammer.

Cunningham decided to become a vendor at the 2018 festival after recently conducted a blacksmithing class at Wildwood Cultural Center.

“I heard about the show and thought I’d come out and give it a try,” he said.

For many years, the annual summer show was known as the Wildwood Fine Arts Festival. In 2017, wine was added to the festival mix.

“We completely rebranded the festival last year. It needed a refresh,” said Nick Standering, manager of Wildwood Cultural Center. “We put a new logo out and reached out into other areas.”

Standering said a lot of other fine arts festivals in the region had incorporated wine vendors into their events, and organizers of the Wildwood festival thought it would be a good idea to try.

This year’s festival featured Park Avenue Winery of Ashtabula and St. Joseph Vineyard of Madison Township. Besides serving their products to festival visitors, winery representatives were happy to answer questions about wine, Standering said.

As the Wildwood Fine Arts and Wine Festival approaches its 40th anniversary, Standering believes that the event has become popular for a couple of key reasons.

For one thing, being a juried show has helped ensure that the event draws a wide variety of artists who produce quality work.

In addition, the festival is staged in an atmosphere that is hard to match, Standering said.

“The festival is held on historical grounds featuring a 1908 Tudor mansion,” he said, contrasting the event to other art festivals held in downtowns or retail districts. “Our niche is that we’re tucked back in the Wildwood Estate, it’s a little more intimate, and that kind of sets us apart. I think we have the ultimate setting for a fine arts festival.”

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