Festival tents full of talent

Something clicked in Michael Mettler in 1987 when he visited the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. He came home and began painting -- landscapes mostly.\nAn easy smile settled on his face as he talked about his transformation Saturday. After nearly 13 years of painting, Mettler said he was "ambushed by the elements" in Fort Wayne's Swinney Park and took a series of photographs that turned his attention from painting to the art of capturing the moment in a flash. \n"Photography brings a rush of energy and exhilarating explosion of image," the Fort Wayne native said. "The advantage of photography is the multiplicity of creative output."\nThe tall, bespectacled Mettler was among more than 100 artists who brought their work to the Fourth Street Festival Saturday and Sunday.\nCreations in glass, wood, pewter, stone and wood attracted the attention of visitors at the showcase. Seasoned professionals and artists just starting out presented their wares as IU students and Bloomington residents roamed the festival's four blocks. \nThe festival was created in 1977 by area artists and craftspeople to display southern Indiana talent. Since then, the fair has grown to include artists from all over the country.\nFor Mettler, this festival is among four or five he usually attends during the year -- he works full time as a quality control manager for a small business.\nHe calls himself a "shaman photographer" because of the intertwining of emotions in his art.\n"Instead of analyzing or following an intellectual path to action, the individual surrenders to the soul," Mettler said.\nAnd it is his inner world that yearns to express itself through photography. He has mostly stopped painting and only photographs scenes that speak to his soul and eyes. Mettler, who mainly photographs natural landscapes, seeks intimacy with nature through his art, and he said the only way to do that is to be a student of one's consciousness.\n"The world of the spirit is amplified in my photographs," Mettler said. "Because I started out as a painter, I see everything around me through a painter's eyes." \nWorking with challenges\nConstance Hall thrives on challenges. When she saw glassblowers working in a studio, she decided it looked dangerous and hard enough for her to learn. Mostly, she learned by "making really awful stuff," she said. \nTwenty years and more than a thousand pieces later, Hall was on hand to present her vases, plates, spoonrests, glasses and glass flowers. \nShe said her most popular creation -- the wishing stars -- came about accidentally. A small manual on usage -- that Hall wrote in about two minutes -- accompanies the different colored shapes. One needs only to hold the star and make sure to regularly recharge with star light. Hall said some people believe in the power of the stars. Others simply buy them for their visual appeal. \n"I just started with a shape, and they evolved into what they are," Hall said. "You can start out with a definite shape, but before you know it, it's something completely different."\nHall said her life centers around her art. And because she works for herself, she benefits from setting her own hours and not having anyone tell her what to do.\n"When you work for yourself, you have to be self-motivated or you wouldn't survive," Hall said. "I don't take Sundays or holidays off. I have to make a living."\nGlass artists sees possibilities\nEric Nimberger has been an artist all his life, one way or another. Even while he worked in Chicago as an industrial designer, he tried to infuse his life with the themes present in classic art: the play of lights and darks, the use of color. \nHis artistic career began as a sculptor. He worked with diverse media, including clay, bronze, marble, and even working with semi-precious stones. But it was glass-blowing that he settled on after years of working with other materials.\nFor Nimberger, glass is nimble enough to shape. It's fragile and sturdy at the same time. His creations -- glass fish and other animals on curved metal rods -- evolved as a side project. He noticed that vases can easily break and paperweights get dirty quickly. Customers would return his creations if they broke, and he accumulated a houseful of glass shards. In the end, he began to put broken vases upside-down on rods in his garden. Then, he had an epiphany. He saw a possibility in his garden decorations.\n"I feel like I'm doing something that people are benefitting from more than in my days in Chicago," the Athens, Ohio, resident said. "With art, you have to exercise expertise and restraint at the same time. You have to know when you're producing quality items of beauty. Art isn't something haphazard."\nHis creations sell for as much as $1,500 for the bigger pieces or as little as $15 for the small, shapeless ornaments. Even the weekend's overcast skies couldn't dim the colorful light the pieces projected.\nWhen Nimberger talks about his work, his voice carries a twinge of regret -- up to four pieces get stolen from him during the year. He said it's because their size lends itself to being put in a purse or under a jacket.\nBut he doesn't despair. As an artist, he benefits from the challenges life has presented him.\n"An artist needs an inward drive to survive in this dog-eat-dog world," he said. "In Chicago, I felt as if I was in a giant frying pan, so I got out of it before it fried me."\n-- Contact arts editor Jane Charney at echarney@indiana.edu.