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Show Arts Festival Festival run in state of controlled chaos By Rick Brough No Arts Festival supplement would be complete without a talk with director Don Jomes concerning his myriad duties and problems. The easy part is you don't have to ask Gomes any brilliant questions just sit back and watch the activity around his iffice. He's interrupted every five ninutes by visitors or phone calls. In walks Chip Curry, the banjo players from the Summerdog musical group who looks like a pre-shrunk Burl Ives, to say hello and make sure all the arrangements have been made for their performance on Main Street. Then Gomes confers with one of the food exhibitors to explain the Kimball Art Center is making all the menu boards to insure uniformity. (There are about 30 chow exhibits total, both civic and commercial.) The Chamber of Commerce has called to let him know how many parking passes will be needed for employees on Main Street. "Twelve hundred!" says Gomes incredulously. Meanwhile, out in the parking lot, a small crisis has ensued. Assistant director Liz Nesi-Smith is rushing to a business appointment, ap-pointment, but she's backed her car too far out over a nearby rock garden, and her fender is lodged on a boulder. (You kids and a few other bodies at home should not try doing this. It requires formal training!) Gomes lifts up the rear end of the vehicle and Nesi-Smith is off. All in a day's work. This year's festival features 165 artists from 17 states, with 56 from Utah alone. One change from 1980 is that Gomes is taking special care so all those people are not crowded together. "Last year, the exhibits did not go as far up Main as they could have," Gomes told The Newspaper. "This time we had someone measure the street." Gomes made sure enough open space existed in front of shop entrances. "And we were also careful to separate the kinds of artists. Last year, the only two toy makers in the festival were placed within twenty feet of each other." PI "P 1 W iMiuijriii.iiiiiili ii inn l 1. 1 . m iw.iini ihiiiiiiiiw.iji miiuj i m i 1 . ""fc,' ..... ' Don He also said the scheduling this year his second as festival director is better than 1980. "The deadline for. applications ap-plications was updated by about six weeks, so that while we were still jurying last year in the middle of June, we were finished for this festival by the end of May." The event has become increasingly popular with artists, said Gomes. The number of applicants has leaped from 440 (in 1979) to 520 ( 1980) to 625 this year. For the first time, the jury viewing the work submitted by artists was not anonymous. "It didn't seem to cause any problems," he said. "None of the jurors got any letter bombs ! " Gomes ' There were 35 appeals from artists who were rejected. And 13 of those were accep-ed accep-ed on their second try. The jury process where the artist submits sub-mits five slides of his work to the judges required care and skill from the. artist. "It behooves an applicant to have good lighting and photography," he advised. ad-vised. "The work should show the deatil and the quality of the slides should be con-: sistent." :v h' y' ;?V-. ;?V-. There are challenges too, after 'artists are accepted "the pitfalls of exhibiting on a slanted street, for one," Gomes said. It also helps to be a good salesman. "They -need to be somewhat aggressive without being hawkers," he added. "You can spot the ones with the tasteful, attractive displays that have been around to a lot of festivals. They're like gypsies." Gomes is no gypsy himself, but he's covered his fair share of territory. He is a native Califorian who earned a college degree in psychology and spent two years as an Army intelligence officer. But he always had an affinity for show business and culture. (As a youngster, he staged a beauty contest on his block.) For four years he has lived in Park City, and for the last three, he's worked with the Kimball Art Center. In his job, said Gomes, "I get all the glory and Liz gets all the flack." Liz Nesi-Smith, assistant director of the festival, is a Utah-trained dancer whose career took her from Ballet West to the New York stage to the chorus line of "The Oonny and Marie Show." Gomes said it was a big help to have her working for him ' months in advance of the event. "Last year," he said, "I didn't have an assistant tiUJune." Nesi-Smith organized the slides submit-ed submit-ed by applicants; coordinates the 50 "bus-change "bus-change volunteers (who lurk at the city bus stops to make change for passengers) ; and handled the mail and telephone chores. Under Gomes and Nesi-Smith, a hundred-plus volunteers work to keep the events running smoothly. They're a small army- linked by a half-dozen walkie-, talkies. 'K Gomes is responsible to the Festival Committee made up of Tom Bock from the Park .City Arts Council, Bonnie Bed- : ford of the Chamber of Commerce, David Chaplin from the Kimball Art Center board, City Councilwoman Tina Lewis, and Debbie Symonds from the Convention i and Visitors Bureau. The town i widely represented on the 'committee because everyone knows this is i Park City's hour4o shine. And the hard- - working festival staff is there to see that it does, for the 12th year in a row. ARTS FESTIVAL WEEKEND AUGUST 1 & 2 Save on summer sports apparel and footwear plus 80-81 ski merchandise adJLJllLJ UcJ rnmmm 1700 PARK AVENUE, PARK. CITY; UT. 84060, 649-4949 |