Saturday’s Poste Print Festival might come to be called the first annual festival because artists and vendors found so much success they started planning next year’s event before this year’s ended.
Tara Bounds of Madrid, who organized the festival with help from her print-making husband, Dan Bounds, said people seemed especially to enjoy the hands-on print making available at La Poste from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
“We did cyanotype, lithography, letterpress and had some great foam paper that produced something like  woodcuts,” Bounds said. “The kids loved it.”
“So did the adults,” said Peggy Bounds, Tara’s mother-in-law, who drove down from central Minnesota for the festival. “I saw more adults lined up to use the foam paper than kids.”
Bounds’ mother, Lisa Lange from Orion, Ill., also made the drive to Perry for the day-long event at La Poste.
“I’m very proud of Tara,” Lange said. “She and Dan worked hard on this event, along with a lot of other people, and they deserve all the credit for its success.”
Tireless local-art impresario and La Poste co-owner Jenny Eklund said people came from across the state to see the print exhibition and artist demonstrations.
“We had people here from the Des Moines Art Center,” Eklund said, “and the University of Iowa. They were really impressed. The director of the Octagon Center for the Arts in Ames said he’d be coming back with his radio station friends to record a show. That’s how much they loved this place. Everyone kept saying, ‘Magical, magical, magical.’ It was a huge success even if about 90 percent of the people who came were not from Perry.”
An evening reception for the artists followed the day’s print making. Urbandale guitarist and singer Marilyn Jerome performed popular tunes amid the chatting crowd.
“This is my favorite venue,” Jerome said. “It’s cozy and artsy, and you don’t want it too fancy but more a place where your friends can kick their shoes off and be themselves.”
The Poste Print Festival follows on the heels of last month’s Art Harvest Tour and sets stage for the sixth-annual Art on the Prairie event Nov. 14-15 in downtown Perry. In the meantime, Graney Entertainment and La Poste will team up Oct. 31 to host Come Together, a Musical Celebration of the Beatles.
