MARION — ArtWeek is over, but the event’s impacts still linger.

The state-wide festival promotes arts involvement with a week of accessible community arts events. This and last year the Marion Art Center hosted the Marion version of ArtWeek, inviting artists in to help the community dance, paint, listen to plays, jazz and more.

“It went great,” said Marion ArtWeek  Jennifer Wolfe Webb “We were really pleased with the fun variety of programs that were offered. They were really wonderful. And we got great feedback from those that attended.”

Jodi Stevens, the Art Center’s Executive Director, who led a workshop in Japanese scarf dying for the first time this year, also weighed in on the event. 

“I very much enjoyed the Shibori scarves workshop,” said Stevens, “I was concerned it would not be enough time. But it worked out. People were happy and able to see some of the results.”

For Wolfe Webb, a standout event was the poetry knockout, which pitted actors recreating historic poets Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson against each other, and also matched up contemporary poets, with the audience as the judges.

Annemarie Fredericks as Emily Dickinson won the “historical poets” part of the poetry knockout, and Diana Worley won the “contemporary poets” portion of the knockout after intermission.

“We were all excited about how that turned out. We didn’t have a lot of registration, so we were worried, but at the last minute the numbers increased,” said Wolfe Webb, noting that the event sparked a conversation about having a more regular poetry group at the Art Center.

Organizers are still working out the details of when they will hold the sidewalk “sale-abration,” a rummage-sale-like event that was cancelled due to rain on Sunday. It will be this summer, but organizers need to decide how it will fit with other summer Art Center events.

“We thought about having it inside, but the whole point of it was to have it be a family event, and you couldn’t do the kids’ portion inside,” Stevens said.

In the end, she thinks the event showed that, “you never really now what people are looking for unless you try new things and get their comments. And that’s what we’re trying to do,” Stevens said.