The 19th annual Autumnal Festival kicks off Saturday, Sept. 14, at Illinois State University’s Horticulture Center. The fall-themed festival is the primary fundraiser for this living classroom in north Normal.
Titled Awestruck: The Wonder of Nature, this year’s festival was created with Grant Walsh in mind, a friend of the horticulture center who died in 2021.
Walsh volunteered at the center from 2008-2011 while studying fine arts at ISU.
“[He] impacted the center so much,” said director Jessica Chambers. “He did all the flyers, invitations and newsletters. More so, he created all these incredible sculptures.”
Walsh saw the wonder of nature early in the center's history, when its mature trees were just saplings and the gardens had yet to take shape.
“I think he came along at a time when I was like, 'Oh! This is what the center could be,'” Chambers said. “And that nature and art are the best of friends.”
Last year, the horticulture center launched a fundraiser to build an artist residency inspired by Walsh's vision, aimed at creating more artworks for the gardens. More than than $30,000 was raised to provide stipends and supplies for two student artists, Shaylee Adkins and Ilse Miller, whose works will be on display at this weekend's festival.
Adkins made prints using a woodcut technique. Reflecting on the experience, she said she “learned that being awestruck by nature doesn't have to be about the most exotic place in the world. It's more about the everyday moments you experience, whether it's watching trees or plants move with the wind or change over the seasons, flipping over a rock in your yard, or simply encountering flourishing plants on a walk. That's all it takes.”
“Awe is an emotion; awe is a science,” said Chambers. “Awe can be just watching a monarch [butterfly] fly by, or looking at a prairie, or the Grand Canyon. There are so many different ways that we experience awe.”
In addition to the usual festivities like hayrides, s’mores and kite flying, the center's Wonder Lab will be open for avocational botanists. Artist-in-residence Ilse Miller will host an artmaking session creating clay leaves using an outdoor kiln. And on Saturday, William Allison and Shannon Epplett host storytelling and music with traditional Ojibwe sweet grass braiding. All of it is intended to inspire awe — and to honor Grant Walsh.
“When Grant passed, it was hard,” Chambers said. “I hope I told him thank you. I hope I told him thank you.”
The 2024 Autumnal Festival, Awestruck: The Wonder of Nature, takes place Sept. 14-15 at the ISU Horticultural Center, located off Raab Road. in Normal. Festivities run from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $10 for ages 13 and up, and can be purchased online at horticulturecenter.illinoistate.edu. Discounted tickets are available for kids 12 and under.
