Artists, businesses happy for Columbus Arts Festival’s return
Kate Ward, who is a full-time, self-employed artist, said the halt from the pandemic forced artists to adapt to a new industry.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Columbus Arts Festival is making a return after a two-year pandemic pause, and local artists and businesses are preparing for a big economic impact.
“Oh I’m so excited, I’m so excited!” says Kate Ward, a local 2-D visual artist who is celebrating her 10th anniversary as a full-time self-employed artist, in large part, to the local festival.
“I owe GCAC a huge debt of gratitude through the emerging artists program because it’s was one of the ones that catapulted me to the next level to be able to do that,” Ward said.
Ward explains that a festival can make or break an artist’s career, so the extended halt of the festival circuit forced her and many other artists to adapt to a new industry during the pandemic.
“Everybody had to take a hard left and pay attention to… am I doing the right things with my website? Am I doing the right things for my social media?” Ward said. “It’s like, this is my sole means of income now and I have to focus and it was really hard to make those changes.”
Ward said festivals not only help artists make full-time livings, but also bring community members into the arts community who may be intimidated by galleries and high price tags.
“For art festivals for me, it’s just an amazing opportunity to be in front of people and talk and connect to in a way that you don’t really have any other platform that mirrors that,” Ward said.
The festival will also be an opportunity for gallery owners to meet new faces, like Lynette Santoro-au, the director of Roy G Biv Gallery, which focuses specifically on showcasing emerging artists.
“It’s going to be amazing this year. First of all, the festival coming back is fabulous. It happens to open the same night as Franklinton Fridays, and it’s Franklinton Pride, so there is going to be so much creativity, so much fabulousness in Franklinton that night,” Santoro-au said.
It will also provide hands-on opportunities to meet the artists and buy pieces for all budgets.
“For us, it will be wonderful because we’re going to do a sidewalk sale, we’ll have artists here in the gallery opening their exhibition to share,” Santoro-au said.
For local business owners, this also means more foot traffic into the local establishments, like Yellow Brick Pizza, that opened during the pandemic.
“I’m just really excited to be able to welcome people into the restaurant and for the arts festival to be able to return,” said Faith-Pierce, co-owner of Yellow Brick Pizza.
The application process is now open for Big Local Village, for all local Ohio artisans to showcase their work who may have a smaller collection and not yet touring on a national scale. You can go to their website to apply, the application deadline is May 1, 2022.
Read More: Artists, businesses happy for Columbus Arts Festival’s return