Last weekend, Winowiecki attended the East Lansing Art Festival, which took place from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday throughout downtown East Lansing.

About 200 artists each occupied their own booths displaying artwork ranging from paintings and photographs to pottery and jewelry.

Longtime Running
At the festival, Winowiecki, who has attended the event for about 10 years, displayed instruments he makes out of clay, plastic and cigar boxes.

“This is the one show I do every year where it is only instruments — for some reason East Lansing (customers) like that,” he said.

Throughout the year, Winowiecki travels across the state to sell his merchandise at summer art and music festivals, displays his work in consignment shops and galleries and distributes merchandise from his home studio in Whitehall, Mich.

This summer, he introduced the clayonet, an instrument made of clay and plastic that is similar to a clarinet or saxophone.

“A lot of this isn’t unique, it is just borrowing ideas from other instruments and cultures,” he said. “Once you figure out how something works, you can make the form differently.”

Winowiecki said when he first started making instruments, he did not expect to sell them. But as more and more people learned about his work, he added it to his business of pottery making.

“I learn a lot between the first instrument and the second instrument, and so you make a lot of them to get to the good ones you can keep,” he said. “You start to give them away to friends, and eventually, you get so many requests you have to start selling them.”

Bellaire, Mich., resident Joe Pomerville, who attended the art show yesterday, said he bought instruments from Winowiecki at an art festival last summer.

“I bought a bowdiddle,” he said. “It is a tin can with a broomstick with one string and a glass slider.”

Pomerville said he likes the guitar-like instrument because it is small and he doesn’t have to worry about it breaking. He takes it with him on camping trips and to other music festivals, he said.

“I just throw it in the back of my car and just bring it wherever I go,” he said. “It is a unique instrument that people haven’t seen before.”

Despite a reputation for creating instruments across the state, Winowiecki does not consider himself to be musically talented, as making the instruments is just part of his hobby, he said.

“I wouldn’t say I’m accomplished, but I’d say I have a lot of fun at it,” Winowiecki said.

Like Winowiecki, Bath, Mich., resident Jim Wolnosky is no stranger to the East Lansing Art Festival and displayed his artwork there on and off for about 20 years.

Wolnosky started out as a cabinet maker and has since started creating wood and metal sculptures and mobiles, which he brought with him to sell at this year’s festival.

Wolnosky, who travels throughout the country participating in other art festivals, said compared to other shows he has been to, East Lansing’s is an average one, but he has seen gradual improvement from year to year.

“Every year it seems to get better and a little more organized,” he said. “I think the work gets better and better.”

New and improving
This year’s festival also provided younger, up-and-coming artists with a chance to mingle with more established professionals and learn from them.

Megan Armstrong, a student at Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids, said she plans to be an artist after finishing college and appreciated the chance to speak with the experts featured throughout the weekend. Armstrong said she recently started experimenting with new pottery carving techniques and enjoyed seeing how other artists implemented those techniques into their work.

“I’m talking to all the artists and getting certain feedback and advice, and it’s great,” she said. “There’s such a great variety (of artists) here and it’s just fantastic.”

Lynda Wallis — who traveled more than 200 miles from Wauconda, Ill. — made her first appearance at the East Lansing Art Festival this weekend and said she enjoyed the overall atmosphere of the event and the chance to socialize with other artists.

Wallis displayed numerous oil paintings of sandhill cranes, great blue herons and buffalo — all of which she can see just miles from her home.

“People think I’ve been to Yellowstone (National Park), but those (animals) are about five miles from my house,” she said. “It’s really cool.”

Wallis said her favorite part about showcasing her work at art festivals is the opportunity the events provide her to communicate with attendees who take an interest in her pieces. Because her works are done using a more traditional and old-fashioned form of art, Wallis said she believes she draws in a lot of people to her booth.

A creative couple
As festivalgoers passed by Sanford, Mich., artists Victoria and Scott LaCosse, they paused to admire the depictions of sunsets and water scenes that hung from the outer walls of the husband-and-wife-duo’s booth.

However, the images weren’t painted on canvases, printed on film or even drawn out on sketchbooks. Using a technique crafted throughout the years, Scott LaCosse carves the scenes into carbon steel plates with an angle grinder, and his wife uses a blowtorch to color and complete the pieces.

“I get the nicks, cuts and bruises, and she just gets the happy feeling,” Scott LaCosse said about the process.

Although Victoria LaCosse has been an artist for about 37 years, she didn’t start working with Scott LaCosse until about eight years ago when he took an early retirement to make torch-colored, carved steel with his wife.

“I decided to go out on a limb and see if we could make it on (our) own and things have been going really well,” he said of the change.

Trezise said almost all the art in her home was purchased at the East Lansing Art Festival throughout the years, and the piece she purchased from the LaCosses is among her favorites.

Because of the way the picture changes in different lights, she said it’s like owning one hundred pictures for the price of one.

“It’s both serene, calm and active all at the same time,” she said. “And as you observe it and live it with it in your home at different times of the day, you find that it’s not quite the same piece.”