Please tell me about the upcoming Dundee Day.
This is our 30th event. It is technically our 31st year, but we skipped 2020, so we’re calling this our 30th event.
By all accounts, this is the largest Dundee Day that we’ve ever had. We have figured out how to put 150 booths in this two block stretch. So, folks are going to get cozy, but we’re going have 150 different vendors.
Wow.
That’s my goal. And we always have some no shows, but my goal – I’ve got people on wait list. Instead of having food trucks in line with all the vendor booths, we’re going to have the food trucks up in the KFAB parking lot. We’re going to create food court tables with umbrellas and … creating an actual destination. I’ve seen them called food truck parks and or pods, and so we’re going to create one like that for Dundee Day. We’ve got, you know, another great parade probably a good hour’s worth of participants in the parade. Fire trucks will be back. The vintage fire trucks will be here. 501st Legion is going to be here with some storm troopers. Central High marching band. New this year, we have an adult marching band that’s going to participate.
Dundee Dash is back this year. I think we’ve got over 50 applicants and entries.
Dundee Day started as basically sidewalk sales for the merchants, and it really became sort of an enhanced, a celebratory business promotion and from there it got more and more and more established and bigger. We added the parade.The event grew beyond just merchants, sidewalk sales and started including other vendors. And so, what we’ve been trying to do over the last three or four years is make it really an established part of the community, a community event. Something that a whole lot of people look forward to, not just the merchants with their sales. And we’ve been doing that consistently.
One of the things that we decided this year was we really wanted to really grow the art side and make it a more well-rounded festival and a real community. We initially were going to do a high school art exhibit, but with us being an early to mid-August festival, [it is] only a week or two after school starts. It really is a logistical challenge because we found that we would be telling high school students right before summer, and then telling them two weeks before the event right as they’re starting back to school, the whole class load and all that, we just weren’t getting traction.
So, I saw an event in Atlanta, called the Art Throwdown. It’s a competition. I call it interactive. So, we’re going do our version of the Art Throwdown called Dundee Draws.
An alliteration…
I love alliterations, and we have the Dundee Dash and Dundee Day and Dundee Draws. So, … there’s going to be two segments. There’s going to be a youth part and then an adult part/segment. Each segment will feature 12 artists. They will sit in a circle at 50th and Underwood, right in the heart of Dundee Day, and they will have a subject. They will have 30 minutes using the medium of their choice to draw that subject in any way they see fit. And at the end of that 30 minutes, we have a professional artist who’s going to judge and then somebody, either the subject themselves or somebody related to the subject will then have the opportunity to choose their favorite. Whether it’s the first place or not, they’ll choose their favorite. So, the subject for the segment is TJ Weiss, who works over here at Abe’s and is a very well-established member of our community of Dundee. He’s always helping people out. He’s always taking time out of his schedule to help merchants or to help residents and we kind of feel like this is sort of like a grand marshal kind of thing. It’s a way to celebrate him as a member of our community. And he’ll get a piece of art – custom drawn art.
The subject of the adult segment is going to be a custom-creative-floral piece by a company called Fresh Floral, which is brand new. They’re up on Dodge and 50th, next to Dundee Theater. They are actually a retail outlet of a North Omaha community partnership. They are a new company. They bought Voila which was a for profit company and they are still going to do floral creations. They’re going to have florists on staff. Residents who go through their program can then work at Fresh Floral, learning from professional florists and learning a trade and learning alongside professional florists learning a skill and being able then to either continue working there or go work at another floral shop around town.
This reminds me of how No More Empty Pots does things. Is that the same group?
It’s not same group but it’s very similar. They’re a member of the Merchants Association. They’re a brand new nonprofit here in Omaha and they’re going to donate a piece in the center. And then their manager will have the opportunity to pick something that then they’ll take it have on display at their store. What’s really unique about it as I said, you’ve got 12 different artists, we will provide drawing boards and the paper they’re going to provide whether they want to do it in pencil or chalk or acrylic or oil or whatever, wherever their media of choice is they will provide that. So, you’ll have different media. You have 12 different artists. You’re going have different styles. And because they’re sitting in a circle around the subject, you’re going to have 12 different physical perspectives.
Somebody might be drawing the back of TJ said somebody’s going draw left profile and right profiles. Somebody’s going to have the Dundee clock in the background. Somebody’s going to have the Abe’s gas station in the background. So, they’re all going to have something different. And it’s a really neat as a spectator. It’s really neat experience to walk around the outside of the circle and look over their shoulder and see what their what they’re drawing. And, you know, different artists pick up different things. Some artists think that you know, a person’s eyes are the most valuable trait. And so, the image will be very much focused on your eyes. Some people think that [it’s] the facial hair or the beard or chin or something. So everybody has a different style and it’s a really neat experience to see that happening within 30 minutes. Right in front of you and we’re really excited about that. I think this is going to be something that will become a fixture, again and again. It’s a great way to grow the art part of what we do.
How did you come up with the idea to have it sort of live instead of submission?
It’s based on this Art Throwdown event that I’ve watched down in Atlanta. The Art Throwdown actually is so popular that they have, I think it’s four to six categories. And they actually say okay, this is going to be, you know, pencil drawn or this is going to be modern art style. So, they separate by style. So, you get a little bit of similarities to it. We’re not quite that big ,yet. Yeah, the live drawing event; it makes it again, an interactive part of the event.
Yes, that’s something that could be just very static and people just walked by, but now it is an event itself.
(End of Part One)
Learn more about Dundee Day at:
https://www.dundeeday.org
Learn about Dundee Draw at:
https://www.dundeeday.org/dundee-draws.html
