Join us at the Fayetteville Town Center August 29-31 for the Visual Arts Weekend
See, shop and make art!
7-9pm Friday / Open Space Art Party / $25 / fundraiser for festival
9am-5pm Saturday / 11am-4pm Sunday / free
Don’t miss the Performing Arts Weekend September 5-7
Nadine Baum Studios
Visit fayettevilledowntown.org/ for more information.
Annual event will focus on visual and performing arts during two-week celebration
NORTHWEST ARKANSAS – August 20, 2008 – Fayetteville Downtown Partners announces that the 2008 Fayetteville Arts Festival will take place beginning Friday, August. This year’s festival will focus on both visual and performing arts, with each area representing a week-long celebration of accomplishments by regional artists. Visual Arts events are scheduled to take place August 29th – 31st, while Performing Arts Events will take place September 5th – 7th.
Tickets for all events both weekends may be purchased at the door. All visual arts events will take place at the Fayetteville Town Center, located at 15 W. Mountain Street off the Downtown Square in Fayetteville. All performing arts events will take place at the Nadine Baum Studios, located at the corner of Spring St and West Avenue, one block south of Dickson Street in Fayetteville.
The Visual Arts Festival will begin on Friday, August 29th with the Open Spaces Arts Party, scheduled for 7:00pm-9:00pm at the Fayetteville Town Center.
According to DeDe Peters, owner of DDP Gallery in Fayetteville, “The Fayetteville Town Center is partnering with the Festival on the Open Space Art Party. The staff will use their skills of being one of the preeminent hosting facilities to present a fantastic event.” Tickets for the Open Spaces Art Party have been reduced this year from $50 to $25. Patrons attending the event will have the opportunity to view and purchase art prior to the festival’s public opening, which takes place on Saturday, August 30th from 9am-5pm and on Sunday, August 31st from 11am-4pm.
As in previous festivals, artists were selected from a juried application process. Work produced by 40 chosen artists includes two and three-dimensional mediums such as paintings, sculptures, ceramics, textiles and jewelry. “Many of the artists live and create in the region by also exhibit nationally,” says Peters. Previous festivals have seen more than $50,000 worth of visual arts purchase.
The Performing Arts Festival continues the following weekend, September 5th -7th, with a kick- off reception on Friday, September 5th from 6-7.30pm at Nadine Baum Studios. Beginning at 8pm that evening, TheatreSquared - Northwest Arkansas’ resident professional theatre company - opens its 2008-09 season with the Ron Hutchinson comedy, Moonlight and Magnolias, a smart, behind-the-scenes comedy about the making of Gone With the Wind. Tickets to this event are available for $22 or $18 for seniors.
On Saturday, September 6th, Ceramic Cow Productions - producers of the popular Dupont, Mississippi series and most recently Pearl’s Sixth Wedding - will present Pearls of Wisdom at 12 noon. Tickets to this event are available for $10.
The Arkansas Playwrights Workshop, under the direction of Bob Ford, will present Fresh Theatre, selected 10 minute plays at 2pm. Tickets to this event are available for $7, and a free reading from the National Writer’s Project follows the event 3.45pm.
Also on Saturday, September 6th, TheatreSquared presents Moonlight and Magnolias at 8pm.
On Sunday, September 7th, Moonlight and Magnolias plays at 2pm and at 6pm the weekend’s perennial favorite event, The 24 Hour Play Festival, to be hosted by Pearl Covington begins. In the 24 Hour Play Festival, competing teams composed of five members each have 24 hours to write and rehearse a 10- minute script. Performances begin at 6pm on Sunday evening until 8.30. Plays are judged by a three member panel and cash prizes will be awarded for first, second and audience choice. Tickets to this event are available for $10.
Following the 24 Hour Play Festival and as the votes are being tallied, TheatreSquared and Ceramic Cow Productions will present an exhibition performance of Splash Theatre. “In Splash Theatre we will have two teams - One from TheatreSquared and one from Ceramic Cow. TheatreSquared will write a 10 minute script for the Ceramic Cow team, and the Ceramic Cow team will write one for TheaterSquared,” said Mark Landon Smith, Co-Founder of Ceramic Cow Productions. Two actors from each company will receive the script written for them a month in advance, however neither actor knows who their acting partner is. There are no rehearsals. The actors memorize their lines independently and discover who their fellow actor is the moment the curtain goes up at the performance.
An estimated 9,000 people will attend Fayetteville Arts Festival events over these two weekends, providing increased revenue to local businesses while promoting the arts community.
For additional information regarding the Visual Arts Festival events, call Fayetteville Downtown Partners at 479.571.3337. For additional information regarding the Performing Arts Festival events, please call Ceramic Cow Productions at 479.571.4879, and for additional information regarding TheatreSquared’s production of Moonlight and Magnolias, please call 479.445.6333.
2008 Fayetteville Arts Festival Schedule of Events
VISUAL ARTS WEEKEND
All events take place at the Fayetteville Town Center
15 West Mountain Street
Fayetteville
Friday, August 29th
7-9pm
Open Space Art Party
Entertainment, food, beverages (alcoholic and non)
$25 per ticket
Saturday, August 30th
9am-5pm
Artist Booths and Interactive Events
FREE
Sunday, August 31st
11am-4pm
Artist Booths
FREE
PERFORMING ARTS WEEKEND
All events take place at the Nadine-Baum Studios
505 West Spring Street
Fayetteville
Friday, September 5th
6-7.30pm
Kickoff Reception
Entertainment, food, beverages (alcoholic and non)
FREE
8.00pm
Moonlight and Magnolias
Presented by TheatreSquared
Tickets at $22/$18 seniors
Saturday, September 6th
12 noon
Pearls of Wisdom
Presented by Ceramic Cow Productions
Tickets at $10
2pm
Fresh Theatre
Presented by the Arkansas Playwright’s Workshop
Tickets at $7
3.45pm
National Writer’s Project
Free Event
8.00pm
Moonlight and Magnolias
Presented by TheatreSquared
Tickets at $22
Sunday, September 7th
2pm
Moonlight and Magnolias
Presented by TheatreSquared
Tickets at $22
6pm
The 24 Hour Play Festival
Followed by
Splash Theatre
Presented by TheatreSquared and Ceramic Cow Productions
Tickets at $10
###
For more information, contact:
Daniel Keeley, President
Fayetteville Downtown Partners
479.530.8347
danielkeeley@sbcglobal.net
www.fayettevilledowntown.org
Volunteers are needed to work the Fayetteville Arts Festival, especially during load-in and load-out during the visual arts weekend, August 29 – 31. There may also be volunteers needed for the performance weekend, September 5 – 7.
There are many slots/tasks available. Please contact Casey Hamaker at CaseyHamaker@gmail.com or (479) 841-1764 with a time that you can come and help out. Bring your friends; it’s a festival!
For more information, visit www.fayettevilledowntown.org/.
ROGERS, Arkansas — The Pinnacle Hills Art Festival, to be held September 5 – 7, 2008 in Northwest Arkansas, has selected the THEA Foundation, an Arkansas-based educational foundation, as its official charitable organization.
“Art is a source of inspiration and strength for young people from every corner of Arkansas”, said Steve Schmidt, co-producer and Executive Curator of the Pinnacle Hills Art Festival. “The THEA Foundation is showing all of us the possibilities art can create in all our lives.”
The THEA Foundation is the group behind the highly successful Art Across Arkansas program, launched in October 2006 by the Clinton and THEA foundations.
Background:
The mission of the THEA Foundation, established in 2001, is to advocate the importance of art in the development of our youth through educational and promotional activities and to encourage individual participation in art through scholarship, partnership, and other programs. Visit www.theafoundation.org for more information.
The Pinnacle Hills Art Festival, a juried art show and sale, features over 100 fine artists and exhibitors from across Arkansas and the USA. The event is free to the public and will be held September 5 – 7, 2008 at the Pinnacle Hills Promenade in Rogers, Arkansas. Visit www.pinnaclehills.info for details.
Contact:
Pinnacle Hills Art Festival: Dan Stiel (479) 899-6294
THEA Foundation: Paul Leopoulos (501) 379-9512
BY MARSHA L. MELNICHAK Northwest Arkansas Times
First, the Fayetteville City Council said no to using cash reserves in budgeting. Then it voted to pull $12,500 from the same reserves for an arts festival.
With a 5-3 vote, the council approved a resolution “to request that the budget to be submitted to the City Council by the administration be balanced.”
“Basically this is fiscal sustainability. To me, it’s a no-brainer,” said Ward 3 Alderman Bobby Ferrell, who proposed the amendment.
He explained the idea is that when the administration brings a budget to the council for consideration, it should be prepared without use of the city’s cash reserves. Despite that request, the city administration may propose a budget that relies on cash reserves.
“I’ll be bringing forward the best budget that we can. That’s my job. It might mean reserves,” Mayor Dan Coody said after the meeting. “I don’t know yet. We won’t know until we get all the budget figures back from all the divisions and process them.”
Cash reserves can be described as the city’s savings, said Paul Becker, finance and internal services director. They are not a “rainy-day fund,” which is a specifically designated account, he said. Fayetteville does not have a rainy-day fund.
City Attorney Kit Williams said the resolution was, as it states, a request.
“I guess the administration can reject that request,” he said.
Ferrell said his proposal was intended to tighten the budget, not tie staff hands in preparing the budget.
Ward 2 Aldermen Kyle Cook and Nancy Allen and Ward 4 Aldermen Lioneld Jordan and Shirley Lucas joined Ferrell in support of the resolution.
Lucas explained that the council works every year not to go into the reserve and finds itself whittling down the proposed budget.
Ward 1 Aldermen Adella Gray and Brenda Thiel and Ward 3 Alderman Robert Rhoads voted against the resolution.
Coody said at the meeting that not being able to use the reserves could mean raising property taxes or laying people off to have a balanced budget when it is proposed to the council.
He said after the meeting that he would not advocate a property tax increase this year and that the city is not in a position to cut the workforce because it is already understaffed.
Thiel said she would rather see what the city departments think is essential. Without use of the reserves to balance the budget, she said, the council could be put in the position of picking and choosing which city employees get laid off.
Arts festival
A few minutes after the budget discussion, Jordan proposed providing $32,500 to Fayetteville Downtown Partners for producing the 2008 Fayetteville Arts Festival.
That figures was 13 times greater than the amount requested by the group and more than three times the amount of cash donations raised so far by the organization.
Fayetteville Downtown Partners, which is producing the Labor Day weekend festival, did not request city money during the 2008 budget process but asked for $2,500 at the council’s agenda setting session last week.
Downtown Partners board President Daniel Keeley told the council Tuesday that the organization had raised about $10,000 in donations.
As part of his rationale for his amendment, Jordan cited previous council funding for trails, purchase of urban forest and support for the Botanical Garden of the Ozarks from the economic development fund.
That money is part of the city’s general fund cash reserves and is part of the money remaining from the sale of the Wilson Springs Business Park property, now known as springwoods.
“I know that we have talked a lot about supporting the arts program, and I think it’s time that we do that,” Jordan said.
Allen quickly seconded his amendment, which would have changed the city’s contract with Downtown Partners from $2,500 to $32,500.
Rhoads said he was torn between wanting to support the festival and not spending more than the city should.
“If I had all the money in the world, I’d give you a whole lot more than $32,500, but down the road I think we’ll have to come up with some funds … to maintain and enhance the Walton Arts Center,” he said.
The amendment to provide $32,500 for the festival failed with a 5-3 vote. Jordan, Allen and Cook voted for it; Gray, Thiel, Rhoads, Ferrell and Lucas voted against it.
However, the council then voted unanimously to provide $12,500 for the arts festival.
Other business
The council approved an amendment about street design and access, the hiring of two police officers, adding a provision for an energy efficiency certificate to the energy code, and a planned zoning district for a Habitat for Humanity development.
A proposal to allow Aframe signs was left on first reading at the request of city planning staff, which wants to make some changes to it.
Annexation of Holcomb Heights III was approved with a 7-1 vote. Cook voted against it.
Publication:Northwest Arkansas Times; Date:Aug 6, 2008
By Skip Descant, The Morning News
FAYETTEVILLE - The Fayetteville Arts Festival got more than it bargained for Tuesday night when the Fayetteville City Council unanimously agreed to fund it $12,500.
The original proposal before the council was $2,500, which most members appeared to see as too low.
In July, the Fayetteville Advertising and Promotion Commission voted to give the festival $2,500 if the city coughed-up another $2,500. With the city council increasing the amount, the festival will get a total of $15,000 from the two public bodies.
The money will come from the city’s economic development fund, which now has about $1.2 million set aside as a reserve in the general fund, said Paul Becker, Fayetteville’s finance director.
Because the City Council legally can’t give money to an event like the arts festival, Fayetteville will enter into contract with Fayetteville Downtown Partners - the organizing body behind the festival - which will use the money to “promote, produce and manage” the festival.
“This will really help us with the marketing and advertising,” said Sarah Lewis, a member of the festival’s board of directors who spoke after the council vote.
The arts festival’s ideal budget is $54,000, said Daniel Keeley, the director of Fayetteville Downtown Partners.
So far, the group has attracted about $14,000 in in-kind donations and another $10,000 in private contributions. Another $15,000 puts the festival at $39,000.
“We’re only going to spend what we get,” said Keeley, who hinted that advertising and printing budgets likely would need to be scaled back.
However, if a previous proposal by council member Lioneld Jordan would have passed, the mood around the festival board would have been downright festive Tuesday night.
Jordan’s proposal was to give the festival $32,500. That proposal failed in a 3-5 vote, with only Jordan and council members Nancy Allen and Kyle Cook supporting.
“I support the arts, but I’m sorry, I can’t support this,” said Alderman Bobby Ferrell.
“I thought $2,500 was too low,” remarked council member Robert Rhoads, “but I think $32,500 is too high.”
Even Fayetteville Mayor Dan Coody, a self-described art collector, did not support the proposal.
“How can we tell our employees, ‘We’ll give $32,500 to someone that didn’t ever ask for it, but we’re unwilling to give you a raise,’” said Coody.
“But we did spend $75,000 to bring in a consultant to ‘talk’ about economic development,” Jordan remarked.
Both Jordan and Coody will face each other in the upcoming mayor’s race.
GO & DO
Fayetteville Arts Festival
When: Aug. 29-31, Sept. 5-7
Where: Fayetteville Town Center
Dear Arts Fans,
At tonight’s meeting, City Council will be voting whether or not to contract with FDP for this year’s Fayetteville Arts Festival in the amount of $2500. If they vote to pay the money, A and P has already agreed to match that amount.
Please consider coming to tonight’s meeting and saying a few brief words in support of the festival and to encourage the council to accept the contract. If you would rather, you can also email the aldermen and women with your comments. Their email addresses can be found at the city’s website accessfayetteville.org
Thanks to you all. The meeting starts at 6pm at the City Administration Building, downtown Fayetteville.
Sincerely,
Daniel Keeley
The application deadline for artists interested in exhibiting and selling their work at the Pinnacle Hills Art Festival has been extended until August 1, 2008.
To be held September 5 - 7, 2008 at the Pinnacle Hills Promenade in Northwest Arkansas, the Pinnacle Hills Art Festival is a juried fine art show and sale featuring exceptional artists from across Arkansas and the USA.
For more information, visit the Pinnacle Hills Art Festival website at www.pinnaclehills.info
BY SUSANNAH PATTON Northwest Arkansas Times
Posted on Tuesday, May 27, 2008
URL: www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/65620/
Organizers of the Fayetteville Arts Festival are hoping to receive $ 35, 000 from the Advertising & Promotion Commission in order to salvage the two-weekend event held in the fall.
The Fayetteville City Council approved a resolution last week to urge the commission to consider funding the festival. It will now be up to the commission to decide if the funding is granted or not. That discussion will take place at the group’s June meeting.
The original resolution brought forth by Alderman Lioneld Jordan urged the Advertising and Promotion Commission to reconsider its position to fund the arts festival. Read more…
A resolution requesting that the Fayetteville A&P Commission contribute to funding the Fayetteville Arts Festival at the same $35,000 level as last year is on the table. It is on the agenda for the City Council meeting on May 20th. If you have an opinion about continued funding for the arts festival, you can contact your Aldermen (it can be as short as “Please support the resolution to fund FAF08 at tonight’s meeting!”) or show up at City Hall TONIGHT! to speak to the resolution.
The meeting begins at 6 pm in room 219. If you scroll to page four, you can see that this is the final item on the agenda:
www.accessfayetteville.org/government/city_clerk/documents/Current%20Final%20Agenda.pdf
