If you’ve ever wanted to join in a giant puppet parade or put your mark on a piece of a 1,000-foot canvas, the We Art the People Festival this Sunday is your chance.
The festival, organized by OFFCenter Community Arts, will feature the parade and collaborative canvas, as well as about 100 local art vendors and performances by local groups like Le Chat Lunatique and Joe Daddy and Hoodoo Jeff’s Swamp Fried Duo.
Ron Breen, a director of OFFCenter and organizer, said the festival will have a relaxed vibe to help visitors discover new art and making new friends.
“It’s a very unique opportunity, I think. It’s very casual. It’s a celebratory atmosphere. The quality of the artwork — it’s more diverse than anything you would find in other shows,” he said. “It’s a great way to meet new people. It’s a great opportunity to spend the day creating with people you do and do not know.”
The festival will feature a parade, and anyone can sign up to carry a giant puppet, Breen said.
“We have a parade in the morning where everybody can join in. It starts at 11:00 … People can join in if they get there around 10, 10:15 or so. We’ll try to give them something to carry so they can get in on that,” he said.
This is the eighth year OFFCenter, a community art center providing free space and materials to artists, has put on the festival. The festival will feature events from 10 a.m.until 5 p.m. and is family friendly, Breen said.
“We do have 100 folk-art vendors that will be there selling their product, but we also have a very large tent or canopy where kids and families can make art, and we have performances throughout the day,” he said. “It’ll be a day of just celebrating creativity, I think. Everybody can participate.”
Community Artist Lindy Hirst, whose wares will be featured at a booth in the festival, said supporting the festival is a great way to support OFFCenter, which gives everyone the opportunity to make art regardless of income level.
“The proceeds from a lot of the booth sales and rental go to OFFCenter, and I really support OFFCenter wholeheartedly,” she said. “I do what I can do. The booth fee’s only 30 bucks; I can afford that.”
The We Art the People Festival offers a showcase for unrecognized local artists as well as an encouraging atmosphere for anyone to be creative, Hirst said.
“It’s really fun, and there are not too many festivals where you can just dress up, play music, dance spontaneously,” she said. “This is pretty free and wide-open to making new friends. Plus the art for sale is very reasonably priced, in general. So if there are any art collectors around, it’s definitely the place to go to find something.”
Breen said anyone who is creatively inclined is welcome to bring that creativity to the festival.
“If somebody’s a creative person and they want to show up in a corner of the park and start juggling, they’re welcome to do that too. So there are openings for spontaneous kinds of creative acts,” he said. “Just being creative is really the point of this whole festival.”
*We Art the People Festival
Sunday, Sept12 10am-5pm
Giant Puppet Parade at 11am
Sign-up at 10am
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