The 2010 Festival of the Arts is dis­play­ing local art rang­ing from high school choirs to wildlife photography.

This month-long event kicked off on Jan. 28 with the Festival of the Arts Opening Reception. The fes­ti­val fea­tures 77 vary­ing events in 32 days.

Bruce Dilg, chair­man of the Festival of the Arts exec­u­tive com­mit­tee and FSU pro­fes­sor of archi­tec­ture, said the event was ini­tially started 50 years ago to cel­e­brate the 75^th anniver­sary of Ferris State University. The event con­tin­ued until the early ‘90s.

“Three years ago we rein­sti­tuted the Festival of the Arts as a month-long cel­e­bra­tion of the arts,” said Dilg. “It is co-sponsored, co-located and co-funded by both the uni­ver­sity and the greater Big Rapids Community and ArtWORKS of Big Rapids,”

According to Dilg, there are two pri­mary goals of this event; the first goal is to help peo­ple have their lives enriched by the arts.

“Whether you like paint­ing or music isn’t what is impor­tant,” said Dilg. “We all expe­ri­ence the arts every­day from the build­ings we live and work in designed by an archi­tect, the auto­mo­bile we drive designed very care­fully by tal­ented design­ers, the shade of lip­stick or color and style of clothes we select, we expe­ri­ence art.”

The sec­ond goal of the Festival of the Arts is to build a bridge between the FSU cam­pus and down­town Big Rapids.

“By hav­ing events not just here on cam­pus but at places such as Pepper’s, the Blue Cow, and the Big Rapids City Commission cham­bers, we are bring­ing peo­ple in our com­mu­nity together through the arts,” said Dilg.

The exec­u­tive board for the fes­ti­val, which con­sists of Dr. Scott Cohen, the direc­tor of the instru­men­tal music pro­grams at Ferris; Mr. Bill Donahue, pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus of music from Ferris State University; Mr. Mark Gifford, the direc­tor of neigh­bor­hood ser­vices for the City of Big Rapids; Dr. Ed Mallett, founder of the Tuba Back series; and Carrie Weis, the direc­tor of the Rankin Center Art Gallery at Ferris, works hard to keep the events free, or nearly free, for the community.

“Through the incred­i­ble gen­eros­ity of many dif­fer­ent parts of Ferris, the City of Big Rapids, the Downtown Development Authority, the Downtown Business Association and numer­ous busi­nesses and indi­vid­u­als, we raised approx­i­mately $50,000 to put on the Festival and make vir­tu­ally all the events free,” said Dilg.

For a com­plete list of events of the Festival of the Arts, visit fer​ris​.edu/​f​e​s​t​i​v​a​l​/​s​c​h​e​d​u​l​e​.​htm.