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The Nugget Newspaper
Sisters, Oregon
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The contents of the on-line edition of The Nugget represent a selection among the stories that appear in the weekly print edition.

High-flying festival celebrates the arts
By Jim Cornelius

Kites floated, swooped and darted across the skies above Squaw Creek Ranch east of Sisters on Saturday, April 12, as the culmination of a month-long celebration of the arts took flight.

KiteStrings 2003 brought together artists, musicians, kite-flying enthusiasts and spectators in a series of events that celebrated the arts in the Sisters community while raising funds to enhance arts programs.

Organizer Kathy Deggendorfer had always wanted to have a kite-flying party at the ranch she owns with her husband Frank. That whim combined with her love of the arts and a sense of community activism and evolved into KiteStrings 2003.

The project centered around the creation of kite-related art -- from paintings to ironwork, which was displayed in an Art Stroll in town last month and finally auctioned on Saturday.

According to Deggendorfer, the auction raised more than $18,000, which will support a variety of local arts programs, including the Americana Project, which brings roots music into Sisters schools.

"Our concept is to expand it into the middle school next year," Deggendorfer said.

More than 30 Sisters artists contributed works to the auction, in an astounding variety of concepts and media.

The event also drew the support of a small army of volunteers and community supporters.

"This thing could not have happened without the fabulous volunteers -- and of course the artists," Deggendorfer said.

Kite enthusiasts from throughout the Northwest turned out on Saturday to put their art in the air.

There was a 40-foot teddy bear, a giant ice cream cone, a 100-foot wind sock and about 100 other kites of all shapes and sizes plying the breeze.

Kite flying has a whole subculture of enthusiasts built up around the hobby, according to Rod Thrall, Regional Director of the American Kiteflyers' Association.

Thrall got into kite flying sort of by accident. He bought a kite during a visit to Lincoln City and enjoyed flying it. Then he saw a video of a two-string kite. He called his wife over, both of them knowing a new obsession was born.

"I said 'Wow! Look at this! You can steer this thing!' "

Ever since, the family has traveled around North America flying all kinds of kites.

"It's good clean fun and all you need is some open space and a little wind," he said.

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