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Poster features ‘Wautopia’

Arts on the Square selects image

By Angie Landsverk


Click image to enlarge

The poster Susan Reniewicki created for this year’s Arts on the Square features familiar images and fun elements.

The familiar aspects include a river, backyard campfire, archway, squirrel, beach and two buildings she sees as being bookends on Waupaca’s Main Street.

Some of the fun parts include her decision to incorporate last year’s solar eclipse and animals not seen in Waupaca’s outdoors, like a whale, penguins and a monkey, into the image.

They are ideas “that say something that is wonderful whether it’s Waupaca or anywhere,” she said.

The poster is a picture of “Wautopia,” which is this year’s community art project.

The temporary wooden structure is being assembled in downtown Waupaca a week before Arts on the Square.

Reniewicki is the artist behind it.

The Waupaca Community Arts Board (WCAB) organizes Arts on the Square.

The 12th annual arts festival is taking place Saturday, Aug. 18, on North Main Street and in Rotary Riverview Park.

It includes music, artists and workshops.

“I was incredibly honored when the arts board, specifically (WCAB President) Marci (Reynolds), approached me for a concept and project design for this year’s festival,” Reniewicki said.

Reniewicki was then approached to create this year’s poster as well.

“I had to go from 3D to 2D, which was challenging,” she said.

Her image is a collage.

It includes pictures of the “Wautopia” model and clippings from magazines.

Her daughter Lucy Martineau took pictures of the model.

They were then printed on paper, and Reniewicki pieced them together, blending them and using the pictures where she could.

She went through magazines and ripped pages out of them when she saw something she needed.

“I always liked to make things,” Reniewicki said.

She grew up in Stevens Point and has been sewing what she describes as “seriously” since she was 14 years old.

Reniewicki started making her own clothes at that age.

She says she does not have a formal background in art and is self taught.

She majored in English and German at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, and minored in art.

Her artistic experience ranges from costume design and puppets to making window treatments.

She has worked as a professional upholsterer and seamstress.

Since Reniewicki has worked in interior design, she easily gets ideas of what something will look like before it is actually completed.

Posters will be made of her Arts on the Square collage.

The arts board is pleased with it.

“Susan is such a talented artist. She created this 3D structure and then she turned it into a 2D level,” Reynolds said. “It’s really about our community. It’s just another level of what Arts on the Square is, and I’m very happy about that. The arts really can transform a community. I think she brings that out in the image. It’s very uplifting, hopeful.”

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