110 degrees magazine - Index

110 degrees magazine - magazine - Index

PEEKS I BY DON HUNTINGTON I PHOTOS BY RUSSELL BYRNE
WINE, MUSIC, AND
ART INDULGENCE
Our little town knows how to put on a show.
Something about a festival appeals to our willingness
to pitch in together and do something good.
Fourteen years ago when Sara Schnittker was
crowned the Corn Fest Corn Silk Queen, she con -
cluded the day of her coronation by trading her sash
for a dirty T-shirt while emptying overflowing
garbage cans and installing fresh trash liners.
Some people might suppose that Sara would
give herself permission to be queen for at least that
day. On the other hand, there’s a dignity in the kind
of joyful service that she was performing. Sarah’s
cheerful grin and dirty t-shirt bore testimony to a
greatness of heart that couldn’t be conveyed by the
most elegant tiara or by the most elegant gown.
A HOMETOWN FESTIVAL
For the past six years the Brentwood Art
Commission has been putting on a second annual
festival that doesn’t intend to compete with the
Corn Fest but provides a smaller-scale venue in
which Brentwood residents can gather for some
music, art, food, and fun — all for the benefit of
Brentwood’s art and culture.
This was conceived of as a community-based
event that would draw local residents together for
some low-key epicurean-based fellowship.
24 www.110mag.com September/October 2008
PEGGIE SCHUITEMAKER IS PUSHING
BRENTWOOD’S 7TH ANNUAL ART, WINE, AND
JAZZ FESTIVAL TO NEW HEIGHTS.
The event was the brainchild of Chris “Cher”
Robinson, who wanted to provide an opportunity
for area families to join together in a hometown
atmosphere. It would provide a counter-point to
the high-energy Corn Fest with its gathering
throngs of happy people, many of whom drive in
from out-of-town for the occasion.
You can meet a lot of people at Corn Fest but
might never run into one of your neighbors. That
neighborly touch is the hometown advantage that
the Art, Wine, and Jazz Festival provides. The festival
isn’t as hot as Corn Fest in either a literal or a
figurative sense. The “social temperature” of the
Art, Wine, & Jazz Festival event is kept deliberately
low. It has no fireworks. The music is jazz
and pop rather than rock and roll.
And, of course, as opposed to the Corn Fest
with afternoon temperatures that sometimes
soar to 110° or higher, the October weather
during the Art, Wine, and Jazz Festival com -
monly provides some of the most beautiful
weather of the entire year.
There are fewer Festival vendors with a sharper
focus than the anything-goes Corn Fest booths.
You won’t be able to sign up for a tour of a vacation
time-share. In fact, besides food and wine, all
the vendors are devoted to art.
Recent City of Brentwood Council decisions have
passed on management of the Art, Wine, and Jazz
Festival to the Brentwood Art Society, which originated
six years ago, in support for the downtown
fountain that was installed on the corner of Oak
and First Street. The Society went on to support
local art in a number of ways including the annual
Student Art Show and the annual Art Walk, Open
Mic & Poetry Readings.
MOVING THE FESTIVAL AHEAD
Previous Art, Wine, and Jazz Festivals have been a
little too low-key. Vendors have been discouraged
by the light foot traffic, and were sometimes
heard to complain about their limited sales. The
goal was to be quaint but the effect was sometimes
rustic. The event would sometimes come
and go without most local residents even being
aware of the fact that the City was putting on
such a thing.
A lot of memorable things took place at the
Festival, however. Chris Robinson, for example,
promoted an old-time feeling and every year
would make sure that the then Chief of Police,
Mike Davies, would turn out in a hilarious
Keystone Kops police outfit that Chris had made
with her own hands. Chris Robinson, herself, led