FREEPORT — Prairie Wind Live brings together the visual, literary and performance arts in an exciting collaboration between the Freeport Art Museum and Highland Community College. For over twenty years, HCC has produced an award-winning magazine publication called Prairie Wind, featuring art, poetry, short stories and music selected from the Highland Gallery’s annual Juried Art exhibition.
This fall, these works will come to life at the Freeport Art Museum through a dynamic exhibition featuring interactive audio and visual recordings. Visitors to the exhibition will be able to listen to selected original music compositions on MP3 devices while viewing the art and a special video installation which will present interviews with the artists.
The opening reception will be a unique chance for visitors to interact with artists, writers and musicians as they present their works live through demonstration, talks and readings. Following the exhibit opening, a series of educational programs is scheduled to take place at FAM, HCC and at the Freeport Public Library where visitors can experience the multi-media project through readers theatres of featured poetry and short stories and demonstrations of artistic media and technique throughout the duration of the exhibition.
Special guest speaker and former Prairie Wind contributor, Austin Smith, will make a visit to Freeport in October to talk about his newly published book of contemporary poetry titled Almanac, due out in September. Smith grew up on a family dairy farm near Freeport and is a graduate of Freeport High School. He holds an MA in poetry from the University of California –Davis and an MFA in poetry from the University of Virginia. He is currently a Wallace Stenger Fellow at Standord University. Smith credits Prairie Wind with giving him encouragement to continue in his writing pursuits.
Most Prairie Wind Live programs are free and open to the public thanks to the support of a grant by the Freeport Community Foundation. Dates, times and locations will be advertised in print, on the FAM and HCC websites and social media sites. Stay tuned for more details.For more information, call the museum at 815-235-9755.