Tops in Tulips

Even though she was in the depths of a snowy December, Beth Charles was reveling in May and its brightly colored flowers, thanks to a phone call she received from a Tulip Time Festival organizer notifying her that she had won first place in a festival art competition.

“It was right before Christmas when the call came in,” said Charles, 55, a Holland-area resident who grew up in the Fenton area. “I was extremely excited and couldn’t believe that I won,” she added. “I had not one, but two paintings in the top 20, and one was the overall winner,” recalled the artist, who works in acrylics and won $1,000 for the top prize.

The Tulip Time Festival is an annual event (this year it runs Saturday through May 14) in Holland that celebrates the community’s Dutch heritage and culture. The event features three parades, multiple Dutch dance performances, concerts, theater, Dutch attractions, Dutch food, children’s events, trolley tours and thousands upon thousands of tulips.

The art-competition jurors reviewed some 160 entries and narrowed those down to 20 pieces. From those 20, a Tulip Time Festival panel selected the one image that would become a poster which would best express the festival.

Charles’ winning work, called Drama Queens, portrays six different tulip blooms in a variety of colors against richly toned backdrops.  

“Beth Charles' painting has a bright and vivid palette and the style is a somewhat expressive rendering of realistic tulips,” said Derek Johnson, artistic director of the Holland Area Arts Council.

“There’s a pop element to it, too,” he added, referring to renowned artist Andy Warhol’s grid-style works in which simple images are repeated. “There’s something cool about that. She doesn’t try to reinvent the tulip—each block has its own striking, individual presence and could be a painting on its own.”

Johnson also noted that jurors were looking for images that one could see easily while driving down the road or around town.

The Drama Queens poster is available for purchase at several locations in Holland as well as at the Tulip Time Festival office (and online at www.tuliptime.com) and at Holland’s downtown art galleries. The image, available in two poster sizes, also graces coffee cups, T-shirts and note cards.  

The original 24-by-36-inch work, which has already sold for $5,000 to a Cleveland-based art collector who has a cottage in Holland, will be on display at the Holland Area Arts Council through May 14.

The remaining 19 top selections, including Charles’ Amethyst Tulips, will be on display in Holland during the festival. Visitors can vote for their favorite, and the creators of the three most popular works will receive monetary prizes.

Charles, who visits family and friends in Fenton regularly (her husband, Craig Anderson, also grew up in Fenton), says she’s always loved art, even as a little girl attending Lake Fenton Community Schools.

There, she won an art contest at the age of 6.

“Coincidentally, it was of tulips, all in different colors,” Charles said with a laugh.

She graduated from Fenton High School in 1974 and went on to earn a fine arts degree from the University of Michigan.

Balancing act

The artist's festival work features a dramatic background that balances a lime-green hue. 

“The green takes your eye in a triangular path,” she said, adding that she stresses balance and drama when teaching at Beth Charles Art in the Scrap Yard Lofts in Holland.

“Each tulip’s region or square goes from really dark to light,” she said of the painting. “That creates drama,” added Charles while looking outside to tulips that adorn the base of her mailbox.

In the Fenton area, one of Charles’ favorite places from which she draws inspiration is along Tipsico Lake Road.

“There are fields, trees, dirt roads,” she said. “I also think Dibbleville has lots of charm.”    

As for tulips, Charles can’t get enough of their beauty.

“They’re elegant and there’s such a variety of color, from black to multihued,” she said.

About Tulip Time: Not only do Holland visitors get to immerse themselves in thousands of colorful blooming tulips during the Tulip Time Festival, but they can also enjoy Netherlands customs and traditions, such as folk dances, parades, music, food, a marketplace and more. Tulip Time information: 800-822-2770, www.tuliptime.com.