It’s the fourth year of the Chilkat Valley’s annual spring art festival and organizers are hoping a new grant will help them grow the festival event further.
The Alaska Arts Confluence is still raising the funds it needs to match and receive a $4,500 Alaska State Council on the Arts grant. Board members said they’re about $1,000 away from meeting that goal. The group plans to use the funds to pay artists running workshops and expand the core things it offers during the two-week Artfest at the end of April.
“The marketplace is going to be much bigger and the parade is going to be bigger,” Alten said.
The theme of this year’s parade is “Colors of the Wind.” The winner of the most creative float will get $100 and bragging rights.
“This year we’d really like to get a bunch of art cars in the parade – people who have painted their cars or done fun things to their cars,” Alten said.
The ArtFest calendar changes every year, depending on which local organizations participate, but that’s kind of the idea. Both Alten and Arts Confluence board member Charlie Moody described creating a space for organizations to launch the Chilkat Valley into summer with whatever local art they’d like to produce.
“We’re really trying to help people promote and expand what we’re offering,” Alten said. “To make it something people look forward to, that visitors come for. There’s never really been much to do in April.”
This year on the calendar, the Haines Arts Council’s workshops include songwriting and ballet. The organization is also in its second year of running a music, art & dance camp on Sunday starting at noon at the Chilkat Center. Tracy Wirak-Cassidy is running an ArtFest workshop teaching people about marine debris and then creating a mosaic with it throughout April; several afternoon art sessions are scheduled at the Haines library and the Lynn Canal Community Players are staging a comedic spoof on an Alfred Hitchcock film called “39 Steps.”
The Arts Confluence is sponsoring a handful of workshops on May 2, including block printing, zine making, and felt art.
The group is also organizing Live Art on the Trails which features performers showcasing their work on the CIA Trails in Haines. That event has been pushed back a week, to April 25th, due to the snow conditions on the trails. Moody said anyone interested in showing off their skills during that event can reach out to him or Clara Natonabah to get involved. As of Wednesday, there were three spots left open.
Events are still being added to the Alaska Arts Confluence calendar. Organizers said the best place to find more information was at the website alaskaartsconfluence.org/artfest.
Artfest ends after a day of events on Sunday May 3, starting with the parade at 11:30 a.m. and ending with a Jackson Emmer concert at the Chilkat Center at 7 p.m.
Ultimately, Alten and Moody said they’d like to see the annual event grow into something that brings people together to practice art of all kinds, regardless of what the Confluence can organize.
“There’s an economic benefit,” Alten said. “We know that about art festivals. Yukon Art Festival has grown by leaps and bounds. That’s what art festivals do, they grow.”