Roughly 10,000 travelers will flock to Florence for the 36th annual Arts Alive Festival.
The festival is this Saturday and Sunday at Wilson Park. The event begins Saturday with an outdoor art market and gallery exhibition. Admission is free.
Patrons will find art from more than 80 artists including ceramicists, jewelers, painters, sculptors and woodworkers. One of these artists is the nationally recognized George Jones Jr.
Jones is a fourth-generation broom-maker who specializes in creating multi-colored brooms. While many artists are local to Alabama, others hail anywhere from Mississippi and Tennessee to California and North Carolina.
Debra Dombrowski is this year’s festival chairperson. She said the Arts Alive Festival keeps the spirit of the arts alive in North Alabama and the Southeast.
“The mission of Arts Alive is to foster and encourage public appreciation of the arts in the Shoals by inviting artists from outside the community and from around the community to gather in one place,” she said. “We make it easy for people to come and experience art and to see things that they might not have been exposed to otherwise.”
In addition to enriching the community, Dombrowski said the festival also supports Alabama artists.
“Funding for formal arts education has been disappearing over the years. We step in and we give students opportunities to learn outside of the school setting,” she said. “Artists love to come to Arts Alive. We have several artists who've been with us for decades. The artists who participate in Arts Alive give a lot to the community, but we give a lot back to them.”
The festival features an artist’s gala Saturday at 5:30 p.m. where jury-selected artists win monetary awards for their work. And all proceeds to this event support the Kennedy-Douglass Volunteers, a non-profit that funds grants and scholarships for local art teachers, students and programs.
Pre-registration is not required. Visitors just show up. Dombrowski reported parking is plentiful.
For visitors who miss this year’s festival, the gallery exhibition at Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts will remain open until June 29th during regular business hours.
