Lakeside Legacy Arts Park First Friday Gallery Event

Lakeside Foundation hosts 1st First Friday of 2013! 
For interviews about First Friday, contact Erin McElory, Advancement Coordinator at 815-455-8000.

Lakeside Legacy Foundation is proud to kick-off the 2013 gallery season with one of the Arts Park’s most intriguing exhibits to date. The Midnight Fields exhibit features the dark and mysterious work of Connie Sonnenberg and Kendall Wallor, local artists.  Come out on February 1st to the First Friday event from five o’clock in the evening until eight o’clock in the evening, and enjoy free light refreshments, and a cash bar.  Music for this unique event will be provided by Mark Piekos featuringSummer, an acoustic duo.  Enjoy this free art event at the historic Dole Mansion located adjacent to Crystal Lake at 401 Country Club Rd., Crystal Lake, IL. Guests can interact with the artists, take a self-guided tour of the historic Dole Mansion, and purchase art.

The event’s theme, Midnight Fields, aims to create an atmosphere which we “don’t often see with our own eyes.”  Visitors will enter the dimly lit galleries to find vignettes “where flora and fauna exist at a very symbolic point in time, the bewitching hour of midnight.” Midnight Fields is on display from February 1st thru February 22nd and can be viewed Monday-Friday from nine o’clock in the morning until five o’clock in the evening.

The work of Connie Sonnenberg, winner of the “Best of Acrylic 2012” at Barrington’s Art in the Barn, primarily reflects the world of equestrianism.  She wishes to depict the horse as a creature of great dignity. When describing the painting “Attitude,” she shares her “desire to capture the movement and attitude of this beautiful animal with personality and wisdom while he runs free.” Connie has been deeply involved with horses for the past 15 years as an owner as well as an instructor and trainer.

Kendall Wallor is a 2009 graduate of the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign’s Fine Arts-Painting program.  She describes her subject matter as having “a dark yet romanticized feel to it that is meant to grab and hold its viewers captive while they become pulled into the infinite stage of the painting and its created environment.”  Wallor joins Sonnenberg in a longtime love of the equine world; she supports various horse rescue organizations, and draws inspiration from this activism. Wallor also is an owner, trainer, and also assists the Eastern Illinois University Equestrian team.

Following the gallery opening, guests can purchase tickets to the Roger Reupert and Friends interactive jazz concert in theListening Room at Lakeside Legacy Arts Park.  Tickets are $10 a person, and seeting is limited. Tickets to the past twoListening Room performances sold out. Contact the Box Office at 815-455-8000. Visit www.LakesideLegacy.org for more information on First Friday and the Listening Room.