Local artist takes this year’s Harvest Festival spotlight

Kimberley McGee

Friday, Aug. 24, 2001 | 9:52 a.m.

It's Christmas in August for the craft connoisseur.

The 14th annual Las Vegas Harvest Festival rolls into town this weekend, bringing myriad handmade crafts -- including soaps, jewelry, candles, woodcarvings, ceramics and wooden toys -- and edible arts such as fudge and pastas.

But the true nature of the show lies in the connection between the public and the private artists who work alone most of the year in anticipation of this show.

"It's a big event for the artists and the people who (attend)," Kathie Ritchie, manager of the festival, said.

The three-day event at Cashman Center begins today with performances by area folk dancers throughout the day. Appalachian cloggers, Dixieland jazz bands and a cappella groups will stroll through the crowd and perform on stages.

Each year the festival chooses an artist from its more than 200 exhibitors to feature. This year's festival is showcasing the artwork of local printmaker Maria Arango.

Arango said she became fascinated with the ancient art of wood cuts about 10 years ago. She draws an image onto a piece of paper and then painstakingly carves that image into a block of wood.

The result is more intimate than a drawing, she said.

"For an artist, what you do comes from deep within," Arango said. "The wood gives the image up to me ... The (pressure) of the knife against the wood changes what you had in mind and the art becomes what it is meant to be."

Born in Havana, Cuba, in 1959, Arango's extended family scattered to countries around the world in 1961 when they fled their homeland to escape Fidel Castro's communist government.

Arango's father moved his small family to Spain, where they lived until that country's government experienced tumult as well. The Arangos moved to Las Vegas in 1974 to be closer to family members who had settled here.

Arango attended Clark High School. She dabbled in art during the day and worked at a local McDonald's restaurant after school.

"I'm very proud of that," Arango said. "It was very hard work. But it taught me to be punctual, to work for something."

She became a swing-shift manager at McDonald's, which she describes as a pinnacle moment in her young life.

"It was my first taste of what they called the American dream," Arango said. "If you work hard, you do get ahead."

She knew there was more to gain in the United States than a fast-food career, but it would take her 20 years to realize her own dream.

After earning a master's degree in exercise physiology at UNLV in 1992, Arango became a health-education manager for Sierra Health Services. At night she attended art classes at UNLV.

Art became her life's work. She eventually found print making and wood cuts through a class at UNLV.

"I really fell in love with (wood cuts)," Arango said. "There's an essence of magic there for me. The final product is not what you intended. The process almost takes over for you and guides your hand to the art of the wood."

Arango's works featuring people were created from her idea of beauty in the human form. After three years of creating "wood-people pieces," as she calls them, she said she can work with a piece of wood to release the image that lies in its dark lines of grain.

"I started seeing people in the wood," Arango said. "I would grab a block of wood and there's a person in the grain. I release what the wood has to offer."

She began to enter her art in art shows five years ago. It became a desire she could not ignore.

Arango left her cushy job and retirement benefits to become a full-time artist on Sept. 30, 1999.

"I had to try," she said. "It's hard. Artists have self-doubts. There is nobody telling you that you did a good job."

That's what art shows accomplish for the 41-year-old artist.

With more than 50 pieces in tow, Arango travels to about 20 art shows and festivals throughout the year. This is her first year at the Harvest Festival.

Her 16-by-20-foot art pieces and smaller art objects, such as bookmarks, sell for $30-$300. She usually sells 25-30 pieces per show.

Regardless of what she sells or the business contacts she makes, Arango enjoys talking to people who attend the shows.

"That's who tells us (artists) whether we are good or not," Arango said. "It's the people who come to the shows."

The people who wander the aisles between the art booths, she said, are looking for what interests them. Also, she suggests that there are rare finds in the cultural treasures that community art shows offer.

"A lot of regional artists who are very good, but may not be big, are at these shows," Arango said. "There is a lot to be seen."