The Columbia Festival of the Arts is for the birds.
Local artists and residents will be decorating 101 birdhouses, created by the Howard County Woodworker?s Guild, for the festival?s annual community art project.
“We want a community art project to always be a piece of the festival, some really visual creation that people in the community can have fun working on,” said Barbara Lawson, chairwoman of the festival?s Visual Arts Committee and chief executive officer of the Columbia Foundation. “Mine?s sitting in the garage, and I have to get busy.”
The festival, founded in 1987, is a celebration of music, dance, theater, comedy and art.
The event incorporates a variety of local, national and international artists.
Nichole Hickey, the festival?s executive director, said the festival?s staff begins planning a year in advance. “We get hundreds of unsolicited DVDs, videos, e-mail attachments, you name it. We hear from agents all over the country,” she said.
Some of this year?s highlights include a performance from folk legend Judy Collins, a high teawith local author Manil Suri, an appearance by the Garth Fagan Dance and a very special closing-night finale that will be announced March 31.
“Historically, the festival brings acts to this community that no one has heard of, and they just knock your socks off,” Lawson said.
For the fifth year, the festival has chosen an original piece of artwork by a Howard County K-12 student as the representative design for the festival. Veronica Kapoor, an eighth-grader at Burleigh Manor Middle School, received top honors for her design, which will headline the 2008 Columbia Festival of the Arts.
On May 9, the festival will host a special evening with comedienne Paula Poundstone at the Spear Center in Columbia to support the event.
