NORWALK — Time is running out to cast a vote in the 13th annual Festival of Lighthouses Contest at The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk.

The creative display of 24 large model lighthouses made by local artists, amateurs and students will close on Monday, January 19. 

The exhibit, which has been open since November 22, works like a juried art show except that thousands of Maritime Aquarium visitors are the jury. Visitors can follow the homemade beacons through the galleries and cast a vote for their favorite.

The builder(s) lighthouse that gets the most votes wins $1,500. There are cash awards for five runners-up too: $750 for second place, $375 for third; $300 for fourth; $225 for fifth; and $150 for sixth.

Winners will be announced at an evening reception on January 22.

Several entries this year were made by residents of cities close to the Aquarium including Norwalk, Darien, Stamford and Bridgeport. Lighthouses also are entered from Monroe, Newtown and Shelton in Connecticut, and Yonkers, Brewster, Katonah, White Plains, New Rochelle and Hartsdale in New York.

for the fourth straight year. This year’s creation, “Gingerbread Man Kind,” is among the two dozen entries on view.Newtown resident Donna Kern Ball has entered the contest

Ms Ball’s entry is a large round beacon of white frosting, festooned on multiple levels with gingerbread figures, gingerbread hearts, candy canes, ribbon candy and peppermints. Painstaking pipings of frosting on the gingerbread figures cast them in all sorts of professions – sailor, musician, athlete, firefighter and more.

Ms Ball shared the title in 2011 with fellow resident Laura McNamara, for “Sugar Cookie Sheffield Island,” a lighthouse made from sugar cookies. She placed sixth in 2012 with “Wooly West Quoddy,”  a crocheted beacon she co-created with her mother, Marie Kern; and took home the second-place prize last year with “Twinkie, Twinkie, Little Lighthouse,” a design made from Twinkies®, Ho Hos

^®

and other Hostess snack cakes.

“I have won, placed and showed,” she wrote on her blog (donnakernball.com/blog) in November. “The creative pressure was on to make something that was purely delightful. I chose gingerbread and peppermint for my vocabulary. I pictured brickwork out of gingerbread, with ornamentation of peppermint.”

Seeing – and voting for — the lighthouses is included with Aquarium admission, which is $19.95 for adults, $17.95 for ages 13-17 and senior citizens, and $12.95 for ages 3-12.

The Maritime Aquarium is at 10 North Water Street.

For more details about exhibits, IMAXmaritimeaquarium.org.

^®

movies and programs, call 203-852-0700 or visit