Methow Arts cancels Arts Festival 2020 due to Global Pandemic
For the first time in its 32-year history, Arts Festival—Methow Arts’ annual full-day celebration of art—will not take place, due to the global pandemic.
In 1987, a group of Methow Valley artists and community members envisioned a festival that was dedicated to reveling in the joys of art in its myriad forms: performing arts, visual arts, literary arts, and traditional arts. The festivals they created in those early years included music, painting, sculpture, as well as vibrant colors and lively sounds.
Designed and produced by Methow Arts and held annually on the 4th of July, the festival has become a Methow Valley mainstay event for residents and visitors alike, anchoring the Methow Valley’s commitment to the arts, to community spirit, and to the beauty that surrounds us and the beauty that we can create.
Since the early days of Arts Fest, the festival has grown in size and scope to include 1,800 or more guests, more than 100 volunteers, a stage line-up of entertainment ranging from local talent to regional and nationally-recognized musicians, dancers, and other performers, informational booths, aerialists, a food court and beer garden, face painting, and the element that makes Arts Fest unique: a dozen hands-on art booths dedicated to allowing guests to create art. Led by community artists and lovers of art, the art booths have given kids and adults alike the opportunity to create colorful art pieces, from vivid costumes to paintings to sculpture to ancestral crafts to wearable art.
What would have been the 33rd annual Arts Fest, headlined by the Canadian “Subcontinental-Pop” band Delhi to Dublin, is, unfortunately, simply not possible in this global pandemic. Methow Arts does not anticipate that gatherings of nearly 2000 people will be permitted (or prudent) in early July, and social distancing guidelines are incompatible with the space and spirit of Arts Fest, which is a celebration of community cohesiveness, as much as it is a celebration of the beauty and power of the arts.
At Arts Fest we greet each other with hugs, sit side-by-side on blankets, dance hand-in-hand, hold paintbrushes to each other’s faces, guide small fingers through the process of creating art. We eat and drink together, lift heavy boxes together, and speak into each other’s ears, gathered close as we relish being in each other’s presence in such a joyful, dazzling environment. We can’t wait to do this again when the pandemic has passed.
Methow Arts deeply regrets the cancellation of Arts Fest 2020, and looks forward to continuing to host this beloved community event when circumstances allow.
Stay tuned for activities we are planning that will honor the spirit of Arts Fest in a much different but still vibrant way.
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ART BOOTHS
Hands-on ART-making booths include beaded chokers, summer wreaths, Top Hats, Slime-making, Dress up & Photo Station, Ancestral Skills and favorites such as facepainting and Tie Dye Tshirts. These give Arts Fest participants a chance to engage with ART through projects ranging in difficulty suiting all age groups and levels of manual dexterity. New this year kids 12 and under are admitted for FREE! Kids 13-18 are just $5 and all kids get unlimited artmaking for free.
NEW! Thanks to our generous sponsors and donors, kids get to make
unlimited art projects all day
for free. Held in the
Twisp River Park and starting just after the Independence Day Parade through Twisp, the festival offers something for everyone. The core activities are over a dozen art booths offering a variety of arts experiences for all ages.
food and drink
Enjoy our Old Schoolhouse Brewery BEER GARDEN and LOCAL FOOD ZONE, pie-eating contest
A fresh mix of tantalizing options from our local food vendors: FORK, Rockinghorse Bakery, La Fonda Lopez, Teriyaki Corral, Taco Bahia and Iced Blue Star Coffee at the drink tent & beer garden. Enjoy OSB beer, spiked lemonade, gin & tonic and other chilled beverages in the beer garden. Bring ID! In an effort to reduce waste, please bring a waterbottle or purchase/rent one from us. We offer free water during this event. TICKETS HERE
PIE EATING CONTESTS start at 12:45pm. Sign up at the Volunteer/T-shirt booth. The increasingly popular pie-eating contest will move to center stage so the rest of us can watch the hilarious battle of mouth, stomach, and will.
Day-long stage music and song is intriguing; and live music keeps the scene dynamic, as well as providing a vibrant backdrop for the many celebrations of art happening around the entire park.
(Photos courtesy of E.A. Weymuller.)
Since 1987, Methow Arts Alliance has worked with the community to produce a unique arts festival at Twisp River Park. Held on the 4th of July annually, this community event features day-long entertainment, over 12 hands-on-art booths (hosted by a professional artists from the Artist in Residence roster for the Okanogan region) for children and adults, a local food zone, a pie eating contest, artist demonstrations, field games and much more!
DATE: Sat, July 4th, 11:30-4pm; LOCATION: Twisp River Park, Twisp, WA; TICKETS:$15/Adults, $5/kids over 12. Kids 12 and under are FREE.
NEW! Thanks to our generous sponsors and donors, kids get to make unlimited art projects all day for free.
THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: Blue Star Coffee Roasters, Sun Mountain Lodge, eqpd, Icicle Fund, ArtsWA, NEA, Community Foundation of North Central WA, Hank’s Harvest Foods, KTRT, Freestone Inn, Willowbrook Farm and many more!
