It was with great trepidation that the Winter Park Sidewalk Arts Festival, usually held in mid-March, delayed its event to hold it in mid May this year. May, all the snowbirds are gone and it is hot, hot, hot and may I say a little steamy also? Yuck! Who would come?
Drum roll please .... they came!! and they bought!! Click here for photographer Nels Johnson on what to his wondering eyes appeared.
Just one of the reasons artists love Winter Park is the multitude of prizes and the size them. The artists compete for a total of 63 awards with prize money totaling $74,500 and, the best prize of all, an invitation to the 2022 festival.
My informant Alice Moulton, long time PR Chair for the festival reported to me:
"We had a fantastic show last week! The weather was much nicer than expected for May in Florida and our socially distanced layout was actually a big hit with the artists and attendees. We had wonderful comments from the artists and patrons and the sales seemed to be quite good."
The top 3 winners:
Best of Show ($12,000 purchase award)Helen Gotlib, Dexter, MI, West Lake Preserve II, Printmaking. Helen also won Best of Show in 2019.“West Lake Preserve “ in progress. 8’x5.5’. To see a progress video of this piece being made click here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CM-W4bMZHA
Edyth Bush Charitable Foundation- Art of Philanthropy Award ($5,000 purchase award)Mark Gardner, Saluda, NC, Maple Bowl, WoodMorse Museum Award for a Distinguished Work of Art- ($2,500 Cash Award)Yu Zhou, Winter Garden, FL, Lemons in a Glass Bowl, Painting
Attached is the entire list of the 63 prize winners. On this list there are a lot of familiar names and members and contributors to ArtFairInsiders.com, including, but not limited to Mark Sudduth, Ronnie Phillips, Ronna Katz, Aletha Jones, Matthew Hatala, Rick Loudermilk, Bruce Holwerda and Michael Wommack: WinterPark2021.pdf
A sad note to the event is Russell Yerkes, who won a prize in watercolor, died from a heart attack two days after the art festival. More info here.
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