First Summer Music & Sculpture Festival rocks Tyler Park

A garden party need not be a staid, tame affair of tea sandwiches and wine spritzers.

At Tyler Park Center for the Arts this weekend, it will have quite the sound track.

Saturday and Sunday mark the first Summer Music and Sculpture Festival. Bands such as jammy Wineskin, drummers like Jim Hines, eclectic cover band TriTide, and other acts will provide the beat to an installation featuring dozens of sculptures from artists traveling from as far away as Germany and from as near as Trenton and Philadelphia.

Though the size range of the sculptures varies, the largest piece ("so far," said Tyler Park Center executive director Jennifer Miller) is 12 feet long, six feet wide, and approximately 17 feet high - Maryland artist Judy Sutton Moore's Winged Chariot.

Like other state parks, Tyler offers natural beauty. Yet Miller's founding vision for its Arts Center was to create a community sculpture garden that allowed audiences to delight in artistic expression beyond Mother Earth - or at least the intersection of essence and aesthetics.

"My mission is to encourage prolific creativity and individuality, deepening our reflections of nature and imagination. Sculpture feeds those qualities in me," Miller said. "I hope that others experience the same."

For sculptors, the show is an invitational. Miller met many of them as a juror for the annual New Hope Arts sculpture show and through Philadelphia's Grounds for Sculpture events. Of the works by nearly 30 artists, Miller points out Mark Petgrow's elegant, flowing work derived from the holistic; Ayami Aoyama's use of stone and clean lines; and Judy Sutton Moore's immensity and sense of scale.

"I am excited whenever I can see opportunities to show and sell," Danielle Callahan said of her stoneware sculptures with natural ash glaze. "I'm excited to see a sculpture festival open to both large- and small-scale sculpture using a range of materials, especially clay and woodfiring. The fact that I don't 'fit' into most sculpture festivals makes me a perfect fit for this event."