C Saturday, August 28, 2010
MMUNITY BUILDER Extra
6 Pages
Alexandria Detroit Lakes Morris New York Mills Park Rapids Perham Wadena In this issue of Community Builder, a quarterly publication of local Forum Communications newspapers, we take a look at what makes our community special.
Art deco theme gives Wadena crisp and clean look
PJ File photo
The sun rises above the clouds behind an art deco inspired entrance sign north of Wadena.
What does Wadena have in common with Miami? According to sculptor Kent Scheer, it is an art deco downtown. To curious onlookers driving through U.S. Highway 10, Wadena’s claim to fame has been being hit by an EF-4 tornado. But travelers who turn away from tornado destruction to U.S. Highway 71/Jefferson Street can see brighter and more elegant scenery in the downtown. “One of our challenges here is to get visitors and travelers to turn down onto the main street. I think a lot of people drive through Wadena on Highway 10 and that’s what they see,” Kay Browne, executive director of Partners For a Healthy Wadena Region said. “A lot of people haven’t seen downtown yet.” Browne said art deco was a design movement from 19251950. It originated in France and was sandwiched between the earlier Art Noveau and later Modern art movements. Scheer, who was heavily involved in the downtown revitalization project, said art deco is characterized by a crisp and clean industrial look. It is the “sort of simplicity that had an elegance to it,” he said. Famous buildings with
art deco design include the Chrysler building and Empire State building, Browne said. Browne said the most visible Wadena example is the Cozy Theatre with its neon marquee. The Cozy was built in 1914 and renovated in the 1930s. Inside, the colorful curtains and “Monarch Ice Cream” clock of the original theatre screen continue the art deco aesthetic. The interior of the Wadena Memorial Auditorium, also designed during the Depression, is another current example of art deco. “There isn’t any town around here that has anything like the Cozy Theatre and the Memorial Auditorium,” Browne said. An Aug. 24, 2000 Pioneer Journal article on art deco lists the Boondocks, the Uptown and Smith Furniture as other businesses aside from the Cozy with art deco neon signs. Browne said that the KWAD and Brink’s Jewelry buildings used to have big art deco arches until they were renovated later. The old drive-in theatre marquee on U.S. Highway 71 features this kind of design as well. The late 1990s saw a new
interest in capitalizing on Wadena’s existing art deco characteristics. “The city went through a strategic visioning in 1998,” Browne said. Surveys were sent to discover what was most valued. The highly visible Cozy Theatre was one. Even now, Browne said, visitors stop to take pictures of the Cozy. The nonprofit Partners For a Healthy Wadena Region formed from the strategic planning committee, Browne said. Scheer said the suggestions from the strategic plan coincided with the time for the main street to be resurfaced anyway. Scheer custom-designed the art deco medallion for the street lights. He said that Dave Evans, manager of electric utility, found out how to make the relatively weak blue rings brighter. “All the sidewalks were redone and Kent Scheer also made a sidewalk stamp,” Browne said. Even the trash cans were designed with an art deco theme. The art deco theme as part of the Downtown Revitalization Project was completed in 2003. See ART DECO on PAGE 3
A unique film festival embraces do-it-yourselfers RACHELLE KLEMME
rachellek@wadenapj.com
Since fall 2005, the Whiskey Creek Film Festival hosted at the Cozy Theatre has been one of the area’s unique offerings, showing limited-release movies and documentaries that would not otherwise be offered in small-town Minnesota. Now, with the rising prevalence of RED, YouTube and camera phones, Whiskey Creek is offering a short film contest open to submissions. According to the festival’s website, whiskeycreekfilmfestival.org, qualifying submissions postmarked by Sept. 1 are eligible to win $100 cash awards and additional screenings at venues to be announced in Little Falls, Staples, Brainerd and New York Mills. “So many people now have the tools to make films,” Jamie Robertson, director of the New York Mills Regional Cultural Center said. “You can make a reasonably decent video that has something to say that you can post on YouTube that lots and lots of people will see, which never was a possible option.” He said that filmmaking used to be for a restricted group of people, but with increasing technology, that is no longer the case. Robertson is one of the film festival organizers. He said the object of the festival has always been to show films in current release that aren’t available in the area. He said that no other small-town festivals in the area have this emphasis. Park Rapids, for example, has a film festival, but its theme is classic films rather than independent new releases. He said that “current release” means a film has been in theatres for less than six months. The organizers pick films that are good, but reasonably accessible. They make a point to include family-appropriate films in the selections. “There are lots of good children’s films that are not necessarily released by the very large companies like Disney and Pixar,” Robertson said. Robertson said that Whiskey Creek Film
Festival attendees mostly come from a 50 mile radius, judging on surveys of zip codes. He said that the price of tickets for Whiskey Creek covers only about a third of the cost to bring the limited release films to Wadena. The rest is covered by local businesses, the Five Wings Arts Council, and funding from the 2008 Arts and Culture Legacy Amendment to the Minnesota State Legislature. He said that attendance grew the first two years and since then has been steady the last three years. While some films have gone nearly unnoticed, others like “Waitress” became big hits. “It’s more like a compact film series than a film festival in the traditional sense of the term where you would actually solicit films to be submitted for competition or at least for review,” Robertson said. “It was just an effort to move in that direction and to support Minnesota filmmakers.” He said that the slew of tornado videos on YouTube indicates potential filmmakers in the area. Robertson said he wants to see the Whiskey Creek Film Festival expanded and institutionalized as its own nonprofit in the future. He also said he looks at other area film festivals for ideas. “Different film festivals such as the Fargo Film Festival have had contests where people make the film in 24 or 48 hours and submit it,” he said. Robertson said that since September is a low ebb for film releases, it is easier to schedule. The upcoming Whiskey Creek Film Festival will run Sept. 10-16. The feature film selections for this year’s festival include: • “Babies” (Rated PG; documentary) • “Cyrus” (Rated R; comedy) • “Get Low” (Rated PG-13; comedy) • “Joan Rivers: A Piece Of Work” (Rated R; documentary) • “The Kids Are All Right” (Rated R; comedy) • “Winter’s Bone” (Rated R; drama)
The poster for the 2010 Whiskey Creek Film Festival.
Photo Illustration provided by Kent Scheer
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