Lewes will celebrate the holidays in a new way, with a lantern festival.
The idea was first floated during a Public Art Committee workshop earlier this summer. At a meeting last week, Committee chair Heidi Lowe presented a more detailed plan and a budget.
For the event, the Public Art Committee will buy premade paper lanterns and other supplies, and hold several classes to teach attendees how to decorate their lanterns. Then, the lantern makers will gather on the winter solstice, December 21, for a parade, Lowe says.
“So we could walk through town and end at the Canal Front Park and make a circle or something,” she said. “It is the solstice.”
The classes would happen on the Saturday or Sunday before December 21 or on the solstice itself.
Lowe suggested that the event could happen with a fairly lean budget, around $600 to cover the lanterns themselves and supplies to decorate them. She proposes charging participants in the classes $10 each and accepting up to 100 people total.
She noted that some people might come to a class and not the parade, while others might make a lantern at home and join the parade. Lowe stresses that the point is getting people to engage with the arts.
“All good outcomes,” she said. “Every one of those outcomes I give us a 10 out of 10. Because someone participated in art, participated in some of our thing, and was inspired by us. We are winning.”
Parks & Marina Administrator Giulia Kirsch, a non-voting member of the Public Art Committee, cautioned that the weekend committee members seemed to prefer would be a busy one. Committee member Susan Heller said she could support an earlier date to give people a chance to make their lanterns more a part of the holiday season.
“The idea would be people put it on their porch or in their window to display,” she said. “And then if they want to take it into the parade or the New Year's or the solstice or whatever, they can use it for those purposes and have multiple places to take it.”
But Yvonne Love, an associate professor of art at Penn State who will be joining the PAC next month, said the December 21 date makes sense. She added that tying the lantern festival to the winter solstice creates a way for the community to mark the season in a way that is welcoming to all faiths.
“The idea of a gathering for the community that is about the shift in light and the change of the season is very different than some of the established holidays,” she said.
More details about the event will be released in the coming weeks.
Delaware Public Media's arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
