By Laura Stewart

For Hometown News

NEW SMYRNA BEACH - Holly Hambrick doesn't show her work at many street shows - just two last fall and, after this weekend's "IMAGES: A Festival of the Arts," the Coconut Grove Arts Festival.

But the Ormond Beach artist is looking forward to IMAGES, because it offers her an unusual opportunity to hear what art lovers think of her new body of work.

"I'm really excited about showing my mixed-media boxes, especially the shrines and altars," Ms. Hambrick said.

At IMAGES, she will be competing with more than 200 other artists for a total of $100,000 in cash and purchase awards.

"Some are funny, like the new pieces in the 'My Momma Said' and 'Uncle Bill and Uncle Bob' series, with my uncle and his friend in bathrobes, smoking cigarettes." She said of her latest pieces. "They come from my Southern background, in North Carolina where my parents were sharecroppers."

Her work has won Ms. Hambrick recognition as an "outsider" or "visionary" artist, and led to exhibits at The House of Blues and other art spaces. She gathers her materials - small bottles of sand, broken bits of china - and combines it with fabric and other "flotsam and jetsam," she said. She builds her pieces to suit herself, and a growing group of collectors, rather than the more formal art world. Her target audience at IMAGES is simply anyone who stops by, and takes time to reflect on her boxes - even the festival's judges.

Those judges - Leslie King-Hammond, graduate dean emeritus at Maryland Institute of Art, and Ben Thompson, curator at Jacksonville's Museum of Contemporary Art - will select the 36 artists who will share $21,150 in cash prizes, including the $5,000 Best of Show award. Having them single her out would be an honor, says Ms. Hambrick. But even more valuable would be hearing reaction from casual festival-goers, out for a day of all kinds of art along Riverside Drive and in Riverside Park.

Besides the booths of artists displaying everything from mouth-blown glass to one-of-a-kind wearable art and non-functional ceramics, IMAGES features a full slate of performing artists. Highlights are the New Smyrna Beach Showdolls at 12:40 p.m. on Saturday, Bahamian Junkanoo at noon, 1 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, and the Bobby Mercer & Lotsa Fun Band, at 4 p.m. on Sunday.

The culinary arts will be showcased too, with everything from funnel cakes and kettle corn to gyros, steak sandwiches and Chinese specialties in the Riverside Park food court.

Even though Ms. Hambrick's works are reflective and thought-provoking, she said they will be at home in IMAGES.

The boxes are "personal icons," she says. "But they also are funny. Most of all, I think my latest work expresses what we hope for the future, and I'm looking forward to seeing what people think.

The 34th annual 'IMAGES: A Festival of the Arts" is set for 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 30 and Jan. 31, along Riverside Park, New Smyrna Beach. Admission is free; for more information, visit www.imagesartfestival.org or call (386) 423-4733.