URBANA – Nora Marino's idea to fold 1,000 origami cranes began on a whim. It came while she was looking at the cards and stationery inside a Champaign hobby store.

At the time she was aware of an ancient Japanese legend that anyone who folds 1,000 origami cranes will be granted a wish.

"I thought, 'What do I want to wish for? What's the most significant thing to wish for?' And I thought, 'World peace,'" Nora said.

The 15-year-old started her project a few days later, in early December. Nearly every evening she would fold 12 cranes, often while watching television or a DVD with her parents, Jerry and Kim Kissinger Marino of Champaign.

After Nora achieved her goal in late March, she and her mother began looking for a venue to display the cranes during the eighth annual Boneyard Arts Festival, which runs from Thursday through next Sunday. Mary Tangora at Wind, Water & Light, a gallery and gift shop in Lincoln Square Village in Urbana, immediately agreed to share the cranes with the public.

The cranes – Nora wrote the words "world peace' inside each – will be in the gallery's front window throughout the Arts Festival. Nora will be at the gallery from 10 to 11 a.m. and 4 to 5 p.m. Saturday doing origami demonstrations.

"I love origami," she said. "It's just fun. It's a challenge to take a plain piece of paper and make it into something amazing."

In the crane project, Nora used colored and patterned papers – except for the 1,000th crane. For that she used plain white paper to differentiate it from the others.

Nora, who was home-schooled by her mom up until this past fall, when she entered an online high school, taught herself origami by studying how-to videos on YouTube, as well as books.

She admits to making a few mistakes at first.

"My first crane looked very much like a fat duck," she remembered. "Of course, I was totally happy and excited and said, 'Look at my crane.' Then I figured out how to do it."

Nora acknowledged she became burned out at times folding cranes.

"At 700, it started being drudgery."

She would forge ahead, though, getting excited again and then bored again.

When that happened, she would fold a lotus, dragon, bunny or dog – and once a paper piano.

Once Nora's cranes leave Wind, Water & Light, she will donate them to a local nonprofit children's group.

Kim Kissinger Marino, an artist who had her own graphic design firm in Champaign for 11 years, said she likes the Boneyard Arts Festival because it gives artists an opportunity to show their work when they might not have a gallery or other space.

Many artists, venues

This year, more than 400 artists of all kinds will participate at 130 different places. There will be no late-night events, but there will be 20 or so street activities all four days, many of them sponsored by Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. Those will include performance art, African drumming, a mobile puppet theater, Shakespearean drama, live music and fire spinning and juggling.

The focus each day of the festival will be on a different "district." Thursday, it's downtown Champaign; Friday, the University of Illinois campus; Saturday, downtown Urbana; and Sunday, towns surrounding C-U.

"With the districts what we hoped to create is walkable areas," said Steve Bentz, operators director for 40 North 88 West. "You can just park your car in downtown Urbana, Champaign or the UI campus and do 20 or 30 venues at a go. The Sunday drive is about getting out and about and doing a kind of arts crawl."

On Sunday there will be 10 venues in Mahomet alone, including the Mahomet-Seymour High School Celebrate Art! Other towns in on the action are Bondville, Rantoul, Sidney and St. Joseph, as well as Champaign and Urbana.

The Boneyard Arts Festival is mainly a project of 40 North 88 West, the Champaign County Arts, Culture and Entertainment Culture, but other organizations and businesses contribute to the massive effort.

A richness

Bentz said he's never seen the type of programming this year's festival will bring.

"There's a richness to it. People are really doing a lot of stuff, and it's exciting to see," he said.

New this year are a film festival at the Art Theater featuring local and regional films (please see sidebar) and a display by the relatively new Champaign-Urbana Design Organization, from 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday at Cakes on Walnut, 114 N. Walnut Street St., C.

That exhibit, "abCU 2010: A Tasty Show of Screen-Printed Letters," will feature an alphabet of screen-printed posters. Each letter is designed by a different designer. There will be an interactive display of letters as well. People can buy the posters; 20 percent of the proceeds will go to a designer in need.

Another collaborative effort will be showcased from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday at Amara Yoga & Arts at Lincoln Square Village: "Painting Project – A Community Collaboration."

Last year Amara received a grant from the Urbana public arts program to make copies of large-scale famous paintings. Amara co-owner Kathryn Fitzgerald traced the paintings onto canvas, cut the canvas into similar-sized pieces and invited anyone and everyone to paint the pieces.

Nearly 100 community members of all ages participated, painting on Saturday mornings during the farmer's market in Urbana.

The completed paintings will be on display at Amara from Saturday through May. During the Boneyard event on Saturday at Amara, storyteller Camille Born will tell stories every 15 minutes, between 1 and 3 p.m.

Returning to the Boneyard this year will be the Developmental Service Center's Prompting Theater's ninth annual Theater in the Streets Festival, from noon to 5 or so p.m. Saturday, on Broadway Avenue between Main and Elm streets, Urbana.

Guide, iPhone app to aid Boneyard Arts Festival participants

How to make sense of a four-day festival that will feature more than 400 artists in more than 100 venues – private and public spaces from cafes, eye-care clinics and galleries to clothing stores, churches, museums and taverns?

Use the "official guide" to the Boneyard Arts Festival. It will be published as an "insert" in the Wednesday editions of The News-Gazette.

Complete information on the festival also is available online at http://www.40north.org.

And for the first time, festival-goers can "cruise" the Boneyard Arts Festival with the free 40 North iPhone app called "Art Lives Here."

The app users can share event information with friends via Twitter, Facebook or e-mail. To download the 40 North iPhone app, use the keyword "40N" in the App Store.

The 40 North 88 West Boneyard Arts Festival features works by painters, photographers, filmmakers, musicians, dancers, sculptors, storytellers, poets and others, as well as activities for kids.

The festival focus on Thursday will be downtown Champaign; Friday, University of Illinois campus; Saturday, downtown Urbana; and Sunday, Bondville, Mahomet, Sidney, St. Joseph, Rantoul and Urbana-Champaign.