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Pincher Creek Kite Festival Children of the Wind
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Pincher Creek Kite Festival Children of the Wind
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On July 19 and 20, 2008 the skies over
Windy Point near Pincher Creek, Alberta
will come alive with hundreds of colourful kites.
Don was bitten by the "Kiting Bug" in 1998 on a beach in Mexico where a man in his seventies launched a couple of single line kites and proceeded to tie "Line Laundry" to the kite lines (windsocks in a variety of shapes of animals). On his return to Winnipeg he bought a single line delta kite, only to discover it wouldn't fit in his suitcase so he made his own 8 foot delta in such a way that it packed down to 24 inches.
Don then purchased a dual line kite and, with the help of a twelve year old boy, learned the basics of dual line flying. Also with the help of others in Winnipeg kiting community he proceeded to pick up a few more tips on kiting.
Since then Don has taken a kite or two on holidays back to Mexico, Margarita Island, Venezuela, Hawaii, on a Caribbean cruise, the Dominican Republic.
Don enjoys building kites, doing flying demonstrations and other outings. Don's kite bags contain a variety of single line, dual line and quad line kites, line laundry, and ground displays. Some of both Don's and the public's favourites are his flow form, his flex kite, his ghost delta, his swallow flock, and his spikey bouncer, which has provided hours of enjoyment to the young and not so young. Alice, AKA the "Humble Assistant", likes to make the occasional miniature kite. Don and Alice have instructed kite making workshops in a number of schools in Winnipeg and have continued to do workshops in their new home town of Coaldale, Alberta. They have participated in numerous kite festivals in Canada and the United States. At the 2006 Washington State International Kite Festival, Don entered 2 of his kites and won a first and second place for kite making in his category. At the 2007 American Kitefliers Association Convention, Don won an award for figure kites.
Since moving to Alberta in 2005 Don and Alice have flown at kite festivals in Swift Current, Pincher Creek, Edmonton and Billings Montana, have also flown at the Lethbridge Air Show, done demonstrations for Coaldale Days, Milk River, Coalhurst, Raymond, Alberta Child Find Family Picnic and decorated the Lethbridge Exhibition Pavilion ceiling with kites for CTV’s Canada AM Breakfast with Jeff.
Sharon Musto is a "prairie girl" who is enthralled by spectacular skies, wide open spaces, and KITES! She is also a teacher who works with junior high school students with special needs. Her job meshes well with her hobby (obsession?) because there are many, many ways kites can be used as a teaching tool at all grade levels, and all levels of ability.
Musto has been building and flying kites since 1995. From the very beginning, she found her enthusiasm too great to be contained, so she presents kitemaking workshops for children and adults at every opportunity, locally and internationally. Her kites have garnered numerous awards and recognition but Musto says she still feels like a novice. There are so many design ideas to explore, and the possibilities for graphics on kites are as endless as the sky is high and wide.
"Kites have enriched my life immensely. They offer a means of self-expression, of enjoying the outdoors, connecting with other people, and they're a powerful stress reliever -- among countless other merits!"
Currently, Musto is the Manitoba representative of the Canadian Kite Federation/ Fédération Canadienne du Cerf-Volant, and former International Director of the American Kitefliers Association -- 2000 to 2006 -- representing members in more than 30 countries around the world.
Whether in person, by telephone, or via the internet, she is always happy to share her passion for kites.
John Pollock approaches his kites first as art pieces. He is an art teacher, an artist and a kitemaker. John is a Professor of Art at Montana State University-Billings, where he has taught since 1974. Painting and lithography, which are the areas of media that he works in, have also become his method of creating images on kites.
Over the years he has received many awards and fellowships in printmaking, watercolor, and now in kitemaking. He started showing and competing with his kite on a national level in 1999 and has received awards every year since. The most prestigious of these awards has been twice receiving the Grand National Champion Award at the American Kitefliers Convention. The first was in 2004 for a kite titled “The Crows Stealing the Buffalo Ponies”. The second was in 2007 for a kite titled “Good Times”. Both of these kites have images that are hand painted on nylon by a process using acrylic paint.
To be able to paint on nylon the way Mr. Pollock is currently doing, he spent much of his time while on sabbatical during 2003/04 experimenting with different materials and processes. The successful results turned out to be fairly simple and involve the use of acrylic paint and a special additive made by Golden Acrylics. The results have been very successfully both visually and durable. Besides painting on kite material, John will occasionally create an image and directly print the image onto the nylon material using hand lithography. These processes have been used to make many of the kites that he will be flying at this festival.
John is also very sharing with his ideas and methods. He has conducted several kite painting workshops and demos at various places around the country. Kiting, The Journal of the American Kitefliers Association, printed an article written by him about his painting process in the Spring Issue of 2007.
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For information please contact Pete or Joan
and
1-403-627-3598
or E-Mail them
You can read more about kites at: http://www.kitelife.com/
See one of our sponsors at: http://www.gotkites.com
