Nice people we met in Richards Landing (12 photos)

Zoey Wood Salomon joined 23 other artists for the 10th Annual Arts Festival yesterday in Richards Landing.

Zoey (pictured) is an award-winning artist who has made Sault Ste. Marie her home for the past 29 years.

"I've been participating in this festival for a few years now," Zoey told SooToday.com. "This is all the artists getting together and having a good time."

Zoey's art draws heavily from her First Nations background as well as her Christian faith. "I'm putting out a new book. It's called Healing Through Art and it features twenty of my images."

Underneath each image is a poem written in English and in Objibwe.

Susan Neave is an artist from Echo Bay. She uses a lot of wool, cloth and other textiles. "I like the folk art tradition and the primative," she said. "A lot of my work depicts that style. But my love is really for the wool."

Susan shared that there are many talented artists in the Algoma area. "With Lake Superior and [St. Joseph's] Island, it is just so beautiful and inspirational to many people."

Susan also noted that artists can obtain all their materials locally.

Ross Maguire, a woodworker with Nature's Wood Grains, corroborates the availability of local material for his artwork. "All the wood is cut and dried on the Island," Ross said. "The only thing I don't do is the painting. I have a wildlife landscaping artist who does the painting." Ross also shared that his woodwork is unique in that he leaves the bark on.

Like Susan, Cathy Redmond draws artistic inspiration from St. Joseph's Island. Several of Cathy's watercolours were on display at the festival. "Some of them are Island scenes," she said. "It's an incredible place – the terrain, the water and the rocks and things. It's a unique area. I boat around this area and that's where I'm getting a lot of these pictures."

Meanwhile, Diana Jackson was spending her Canada Day inspiring tomorrow's artists. Diana is the assistant librarian at the Richards Landing Children's Library. She oversees the library's arts and crafts program for children. This week's projects involved pictures of fireworks, a Canada hat, and a paper-bag beaver.

"The art festival brings a lot of people through our library," Diana told SooToday.com. "This being Canada Day, I wanted to have a Canadian theme."

Diana feels the library's program is important to the festival because children are the future artists of the community.