The Friends of the Felt Estate has announced the lineup for its free Thursdays at the Felt summer concert series.
This year’s announcement comes with a special poster design featuring a famous album cover with a local touch as the concert organizer readies for retirement.
The concerts
Concerts are 7 p.m. every Thursday in July, rain or shine, on the Carriage House stage, 6595 138th Ave. in Laketown Township.
For more information, visit the Felt website at www.Feltmansion.org
Food service starts at 6 p.m. Food vendors are Pizza Parliament and Airborne Burritos. No outside drinks. Coolers will be checked.
No dogs or pets except service animals.
Performers
The bands this summer are:
July 6 – Kevin McDaniel House Band: Oldies, rock, country.
July 13 – Brena: Oldies to current hits, classic rock to R&B, country to dance music.
July 20 – Great Scott!: Songs from the 1950s to hits of today.
July 27 – Bucket o’ Maybes: A variety of rock styles featuring classic favorites.
Sponsors of Thursdays at the Felt are Fenn Valley Vineyard and Wine Cellar, Dickinson Wright PLLC, ProTemp Refrigeration, Heating, Air Conditioning Professionals and New Holland Brewing Co.
The poster
The concerts are being promoted on a poster reflecting the famous prism cover of Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon.” The album turned 50 this year.
The inspiration for the poster design came from a mansion feature – a sconce, which is a wall light fixture.
“Ours have prisms hanging from them – something that was all the rage at the end of the 1800s past the turn of the century until after the 1940s or so when things went to a more modern look,” said Felt Operations Director Patty Meyer. The ones hanging in the dining room and parlor in the mansion are original to the building.
“One day, I looked at those prisms and thought that there was once an album cover with a prism on it, and the inspiration went from there,” she explained.
Local artist Antoinette “Toni” Houtman loved the idea and jumped in to designing the Felt poster.
“It’s such an iconic image, and the twist incorporating the crystals from the Felt Mansion lights ties it specifically to the place. You can see the actual vintage light fixtures there,” Houtman said.
In the poster design, the light enters the sconce and separates into the basic colors each representing a performer.
Retirement
“I’ve always loved the idea of a prism: Light comes in and then is refracted and dispersed allowing us to see more closely what light is all about. I’m being more circumspect these days, as I think about my retirement,” she said.
Meyer’s last day will be in October. Over more than 20 years, she has led the restoration of the mansion from an abandoned structure to a vibrant, historical venue used for community events and weddings.
“I’m thinking about what light I’ve given and how the mansion, acting like a prism, refracted and dispersed that light, and in doing so, helped me understand my own light and the light of others, and how powerful light is. We are, each of us, a beacon of light.”
Music is powerful, she added, and even though the Felt concert performers don’t have anything to do with Pink Floyd, the music does have power.
“It is its own light, and when it shines, it can open souls, heal wounds, join friends,” said Meyer.
“And that is my hope for this, my last, concert series at the Felt Mansion. I would like it to be a month of celebration, love, healing and joy. We all need those things. So, when the music pours into the prism of our own minds and hearts, how will it be refracted and dispersed? What will be the spectrum of our experience? All of that is fascinating and important to me,” she said.