Local craftsmen displayed their wares in a cordoned-off section of the Arts District last Sunday, hoping to sell such items as magnetic jewelry, dyed T-shirts, glass beads, wind chimes, striped hula hoops and hand-painted hats and dresses.
Children took on various projects in a Kid's Craft Corner. Each received a helium balloon; some got their faces painted.
And several musicians sang the blues-- including Big Ron Hunter, who also told humorous tales from his childhood about eating skunks and learning to make his guitar "talk" to the point where it could charm a woman.
"It's nice to be down here," said Tamara Michael, who took in the activity on the block of Trade Street between Sixth and Seventh streets. "You can't watch football all the time."
Michael and several hundred other people attended the Arts on Sunday Festival, which opened last Sunday in the Arts District and will continue there each Sunday afternoon this month and each Sunday afternoon in May.
Each Sunday-afternoon edition of the festival will have a different theme. Last Sunday's was titled "Blues-A-Palooza." The theme this afternoon will be "Rhythm of Art"; several drummers, poets and dancers will perform. Go to www.theafasgroup.com for more information.
John Cahoon is the co-owner of Finnigan's Wake on Trade Street. Arts on Sunday festivals started up about three years ago when the Art for Art's Sake Group ran with his proposal to use a festival to make the Arts District more attractive to diners on Sunday afternoons when the shops and galleries there are closed.
"I thought it would be a good way to provide the Arts District with art and to give my customers more to do when they came down here," Cahoon said.
A brochure for Art for Art's Sake says that its mission is to "build, educate and celebrate community through art." In addition to presenting Arts on Sunday festivals, the group has awarded scholarships to students of the Sawtooth School for Visual Art's Summer Arts Honors program, established mentoring and outreach programs and sponsored one-person shows for emerging artists during Gallery Hops. The shows for emerging artists have taken place in Studio 2, 205 W. Sixth St., the headquarters for Art for Art's Sake.
Through the Arts on Sunday festivals, Art for Art's Sake also reaches out to emerging artists in a variety of ways, though not to the exclusion of veterans.
Julie Knabb is a local artist and a board member for Art for Art's Sake. She said that her group helps the festival's artists develop secure and effective ways to display their work, informs them of other events and helps them place their work in galleries.
Most significantly, perhaps, artists aren't charged fees to display and sell their work. The result is an ideal platform "for new artists to get their work out there and see how the public reacts to it," Knabb said.
Several artists who displayed their work last week at Arts on Sunday spoke of other festivals charging them fees as high as several hundred dollars. Karen Osterer, of Starfield Glass, said that those fees made it that much harder to break even, "especially when you're selling small-ticket items."
Angie Teague, a fledgling maker of jewelry from Kernersville, seemed to welcome the push that Arts on Sunday has given her.
"If it wasn't for this, I'd probably just be making it and giving it away to friends," she said.
KKeuffel@wsjournal.com
727-7337
Art for Art's Sake will present the Arts on Sunday Festival in the Arts District from 1 to 5 p.m. each Sunday in October and each Sunday in May. The festival is free and open to the public. For more information, visit www.theafasgroup.com or call 413-6667.
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