Looking back while Art in the Wilds is looking forward to 2020, we can only hope to have a more picture perfect weekend. For those that visited from outside the area, the run up to this year's show was a wash. Spring was wet and unending. Yet, miraculously, the show day brought out the sun and treated us to more all weekend.

What pairs best with great weather? Great art, of course! An estimated 5,600 visitors took a stroll through Evergreen Park to browse the tents and grab a bite from the food vendors. We had 38 artists involved this year, all fantastic and unique. The show and the art both seem to be evolving each year!

Art in the Wilds is funded by grants from the Kane Community Development Foundation and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts along with sponsorship contributions. This year, some major contributors came from Northwest Charitable Foundation, The Cleland Endowment, Highlander Energy, New Growth Industries and Zook Motors. All these paired with corporate and individual donation help the show run smoothly and evolve the way it has.

Naturally, nothing would have come together without our volunteers. Art in the Wilds requires over a hundred volunteers working during the show weekend and throughout the year. New volunteers are always welcome!

If you would like to join the Art in the Wilds team as a volunteer or a sponsor for the 2020 show send a message to artinthewilds.kanepa@gmail.com !

From handcrafted mugs to furniture, art comes in all shapes and sizes. For the 3D functional sort, the concept of displaying them is almost polar opposite to anything else.

Cluttering the space around a functional piece is a definite no-no. You want to use it, don't want to be hindered when you need it, and, most importantly, don't want anything to distract the eye away from that unique piece.

Kitchenware can especially be challenging when it is notoriously a busy, cluttered place. Consider glass front cabinets and reserving a space to store your pieces where they're safe but visible. It can be tempting to isolate that functional art, show it off exclusively, but that would defeat the purpose of it being functional. Love that art by utilizing it. Show off your love for it by letting your guests see it in its natural setting!

For furniture, it is even more important to avoid surrounding or covering it with anything that might cause someone to overlook it. Consider the layout of the room you're placing it in, arrange your favored art piece so it is the very first thing one's eye naturally lands on. An example being, if you have a beautiful hand-carved wooden chair in a living room, have it facing towards the main entrance with a soft buffer zone around it. Give it about a foot of clear space on all sides. If you use it often, and you should, any lamps or end tables should be set back. Make that favorite seat the star at the front of the stage!

Also, consider having the other furniture in the room blend in to the rest of the decor. That way the uniqueness of that piece helps it stand out even more. Functional art is a fantastic way to turn your every day surroundings into something special.

We've got color! We got frames! Now, let's get creative. One of the best ways to tie a piece of art into a room is to take elements from it and incorporate it in the room. To do this beyond color matching, you need to tap into the spirit of the art itself.

Have a beautiful landscape? Place some live (or plastic if you don't have a green thumb) greenery to match those in the art. Have a painting, picture or sculpture of a majestic deer? Go ahead and slip a few antlers into the decor.

Just how integrated you want the room's, and the art's, theme to be is up to you. Sneak a potted cactus on a shelf near a desert photo. Go wild turning the room into a hunting lodge around a painting of a stag. Perhaps set up a small show piece of a partially unraveled ball of yarn with some knitting needles below some textile art.

​Think outside the box and really pay homage to the art you love!