The Black Swamp Arts Festival has revealed its 2022 poster for this year’s festival, scheduled for Sept. 9-11.

This year’s poster features the art of local resident and artist Kathleen Pahl, alongside layout and design elements by local graphic designer Kelsey Mackley.

Pahl shared the following artist statement regarding the poster:

“For the 2022 poster, aesthetic decisions were based on the evening festival experience,” Pahl said. “The lines have a visual rhythm to mimic music. The palette is a recollection of a night under the stars, listening to bands playing, electric blues, purple skies, and the cool chill of the evening. However, the concept of seeking, finding, and emerging, played most heavily into the design of the poster.

“To incorporate these concepts, I utilized an abstract landscape and then hid the Black Swamp Arts Festival salamander mascot. There are 17 salamanders hidden in the swampy, chaotic intertwining lines and color.

She said that the act of seeking and helping the salamander emerge is an allegory of daily seeking, finding and emerging with a new, more complete perspective of the world.

“More than ever, there is a need in our society for the individual to seek and find different perspectives, to step outside our own worldviews, and to find empathy with our neighbors. This is a cornerstone of art — the performance of the viewer to, in essence, seek, find and emerge inspired,” Pahl said. “Black Swamp Arts Festival brings together neighbors to celebrate these differing perspectives through the joy of art and to emerge inspired.”

Pahl was also the artist for the festival’s 2019 poster. She has resided in Bowling Green for more than 20 years, after initially moving to the community to attend Bowling Green State University to obtain her BFA. In 2021, she also earned an MFA from BGSU.

Her paintings will be on display during the festival at Gallery 131, located at 131 W. Wooster St. A showing of Pahl’s artwork is also planned for late September at Schedel Gardens in Elmore.

All work for the BSAF, including the poster art and graphic design, is on a strictly volunteer basis. The festival would not be possible without the work of many dedicated volunteers in the area. Volunteers are still needed for this year’s festival, and information about volunteering at the festival can be found at www.blackswampfest.org/support.

The Black Swamp Arts Festival is a three-day, free live music and arts festival. Held in downtown the first full weekend after Labor Day, there are three stages of music, two art shows, youth arts, artists at work and chalk walk.