Fantasy merges with very real decades-old Panoply Arts Festival in Huntsville

HUNTSVILLE – Mazda Toyota Manufacturing will display one of its cars at the upcoming 42nd annual Panoply Arts Festival, but the Rocket City-made Mazda CX 50 will have a unique look – a wrap created from the event’s official poster.

Artist Jessica Nunno’s creation for that picture remains loyal to her popular style fueled by science fiction and surrealism. The image blends some of the park’s signature wildlife – ducks, koi and goldfish — in an imaginary setting frolicking among mythical creatures at Big Spring Park.

Allison Dillon-Jauken, executive director of Panoply presenter Arts Huntsville, is familiar with Nunno’s art and asked her to create this year’s edition of the representative art piece.

“Allison came to me about the poster specifically because of my background in creature design, like fantastical fantasy type things,” Nunno told 256 Today. “So she came to me and told me the story about all of the volunteers giving their personal experiences at Panoply and bringing up the fish and the ducks. So I took the fish and the ducks and I made them fantastical images.’’

Panoply will be held, rain or shine, April 26-28. For tickets and to register to volunteer, visit www.artshuntsville.org. Day passes are $12. Weekend passes are $20 online only though April 26 at 4 p.m. Children 12-and-under get in free with no ticket required. All potential volunteers 14 and older can request more information by contacting Community Engagement and Grants Manager Ashley Hudson at [email protected].

At the unveiling of Dunno’s artwork, Dillon-Junken described the picture as having “fanciful and colorful characters.”

“One of our festival traditions is centered around the art,” she said. “Each year we ask a local artist to create a piece of work that captures not only the spirit of the festival but the community as well. This year’s poster, the artist embodies Huntsville, love of fantasy and science fiction comics and pop culture.”

Details of the 2024 Panoply signature art, explained by Nunno:

• Two ducks leading a parade across the red Japanese Friendship Bridge were created by Nunno in earlier pictures. They’re brash, 2-year old brothers with a mission in life to be annoying, mostly to each other, whose only place in this script had to be out front.
• A European-style dragon following the young ducks is a pied piper of sorts playing music to entice the fish – both goldfish and koi live in Big Spring – to leap from their world of water. The larger koi take to a fantastical journey on land and join the parade. There’s an artist duck, of course, on the lower left painting the emerging scene.

• Under the bridge plucking a banjo is a mythical creature with a name that could’ve (maybe should’ve) been a 1970s funk song – White Thang. Reports of White Thang, which is a “cryptid” defined as “a creature that is found in stories and that some people believe exists or say they have seen but that has never been proven to exist,’’ go back to the 1940s and has been sighted wandering the counties of Morgan, Etowah and Jefferson. Standing 8-foot with white hair or fur with red burning eyes, legend portrays the beast as moving quickly while bellowing an eerie screech like a high-pitched scream. Cynics explain it away as perhaps pure myth or possibly an albino bear. Others, however, suggest it’s an albino Bigfoot.

Nunno has a bachelor’s in illustration from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She is a freelance illustrator, art teacher and storyteller. She owns and operates Inkspotter Studio at Lowe Mill ARTS and Entertainment.

Her work and that of more than 100 artists from 23 states will be available at Panoply’s Art Marketplace.

“This artwork is whimsical, it’s captivating, and that’s why we love the chance to wrap a car in it,” said Jessica Luther, external affairs specialist at Mazda Toyota Manufacturing. ‘The artwork is amazing and we’re so happy to be a part of it.”