A centuries-old visual and musical art form will soon come to life in Springfield on June 8. It’s the Midwest MidBEST Crankie Fest, a brand-new event that features artists from throughout the Ozarks.
Cities such as Seattle, Baltimore, New York City, and Berkeley host huge, very popular annual crankie festivals every year, but this is the first crankie festival happening in the Ozarks.
“Storytelling has long been part of Ozarks culture, and we are so excited to share this art form with the community and introduce it to new generations of art lovers,” says Sandi Green Baker, who is leading the festival.
Crankie artists might use original or traditional stories, songs, poems, memoirs, recipes, political statements, or many more literary pieces for their subject. They illustrate their work on scrolls of either paper or fabric, and the story is told by rolling the scrolls from one side of a viewing box to another.
“Crankies go back centuries and have been experiencing a revival, especially in folk music circles,” said Baker. “I liken them to an Appalachian drive-in movie theater because they’re secured in a box like you’re watching a show in an old television cabinet.”
Baker, a retired art teacher and Ozarks native, discovered crankies several years ago after they had largely disappeared. She devoted a lot of time to their study and created several of her own. Now she hopes to introduce the Midwest to this tradition.
“Crankies are my dream project as an artist. The art form is a combination of all my passions – storytelling, illustration, theater, shadow puppetry, and live music.”
Baker got the chance to share her love with others by a grant from the Advanced Creative Aging through State Library Leadership Initiative distributed by the Springfield-Greene County Library District.
The grant funded Baker’s eight-week class for senior citizens to make their own crankie. The participants of the class will be the stars of the Midwest MidBEST Crankie Fest, which Baker hopes will become an annual event.
“Over more than two months, class participants have spent many hours learning about crankies and carefully creating what they want theirs to be,” Baker says.
“They each chose a song, story or poem they wanted to create theirs to match, and then spent a great deal of time visually expressing what they wanted to ‘say’ through the images on the scroll. They are very excited to share their works with friends, family, and the wider community.
The festival on June 8 will feature two identical shows at 3 and 7 pm. It will be held at the Shoe Tree Listening Room, an alcohol-free venue at 1342 East St. Louis Street in Springfield.
Funds from the festival benefit the venue, which hosts local and national musical groups. The Shoe Tree is tied to the nonprofit Arrow Creative Reuse, an art supply thrift store led by Baker’s daughter, Re Baker-Dietz.
Tickets to the Midwest MidBEST Crankie Fest are $20 and go on sale May 19 at arrowcreativereuse.org.
Photos of a crankie are attached for publication. For interviews or more information, contact Sandi Green Baker, (417) 493-8987, [email protected]
