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Release Date: Friday, November 20th 2015
First Night Akron goes back to the beginning for 2016: Artist Don Drumm designed first button and 20th anniversary butto
Reprinted from Akron Beacon Journal/Ohio.com - 11.13.15
By: Stephanie Warsmith
Click here for the full story on Ohio.com
When it came time to pick the artist to design the 20th-anniversary button for First Night Akron, the choice wasn’t difficult.
Akron sculptor Don Drumm created the button for the first New Year’s Eve celebration in downtown Akron on Dec. 31, 1996, so it made sense to have him tackle the 20th.
“It seems like the obvious direction to go in celebrating the 20th year of this event and the progression of downtown during that time,” said Sharon Gillberg, a spokeswoman for Downtown Akron Partnership, which organizes First Night.
The nonprofit organization issued a news release Friday announcing this year’s button artist and design, as well as detailing some of the plans for the event.
Drumm, who recently celebrated his 80th birthday, was pleased to be asked to create the anniversary button. He submitted a portfolio of potential designs, with organizers choosing one that shows an abstract, orange-and-pink phoenix. His first button design featured a moon.
“It’s wonderful to be asked again,” Drumm said this week in an interview in his Akron studio. “I feel it’s an honor to do it for my city. I’m a big believer in payback.”
The buttons grant people access to all of First Night’s entertainment and arts events, which will begin at 6 p.m. Dec. 31. The buttons are $10 and go on sale Nov. 27 at Acme, participating FirstMerit bank branches, the Akron Art Museum, the Akron Civic Theatre box office, Angel Falls Coffee and the blue Goodwill boutique.
Normally, past button artists nominate their peers to design the new button. This year, they opted to ask Drumm and forgo the traditional process, Gillberg said.
Much has changed in the past 20 years for Drumm and First Night, with both becoming more popular.
“I got old,” Drumm, who was a mere 60 when he designed the first button, said with a chuckle.
Drumm, who already had his popular gallery 20 years ago, spent the last two years doing back-to-back commissioned pieces for people around the country and thinks he did his best work in the past five to six years.
“This is the first year I’ve felt older — all the aches and pains,” he said.
Drumm said he plans to continue working as long as he physically can.
“I’ve told my friends, ‘If you find me in a pile of dust in the corner, that’s good,’ ” he said.
Drumm said he wanted his button design to be fun and cheerful for the family-friendly event. The drawings he submitted featured a smiling sun — his best-known image — a “crazy” cat, flowers and an abstract “20th.”
“This is my phoenix,” Drumm said, showing the design chosen for the button.
“I don’t know what a phoenix looks like,” he added.
Drumm said the First Night buttons can be any shape, but the first button he designed was round, so he wanted his second to be as well. Downtown Akron Partnership contacted him in the spring about doing the button, and he had his designs finished by mid-summer.
Drumm made a small blunder when he did his initial drawings for this year’s First Night button. He put “2015” on the designs when it should have been 2016. The error was easily remedied, however.
Asked if he thinks he’ll be able to create the 40th-anniversary button, Drumm said that is unlikely. However, he said he might be able to contribute it posthumously.
“They’ll set down my urn and say, ‘Don’s here. He left this behind,’ ” Drumm said, laughing.