See the Artists at Work
On the event grounds you’ll find a fascinating “Craft Village” of traditional and historic arts and crafts. Artists and craftspeople will be actively making and demonstrating their wares – everything from spinning and weaving to carving and glass blowing. This area is always a favorite with the kids!
Click Here to see the Folk Art Demonstrators
Click Here to see the Art Vendors
CLICK HERE TO APPLY: Arts Village Application 2015
The RiverRoots Folk Art Village provides an exciting interactive event within RiverRoots. There are four parts to the village that are designed for our patrons young and old. The Arts n Action Tent, The Jam Tent, The Primitive area, and a Handmade Marketplace. The focus of the Folk Art Village is to educate as well as entertain and provide high quality handmade goods.
This year we are adding Neusole Glassworks to the lineup. They will be demonstrating the art of blown glass from their mobile glassblowing studio. This will provide an inside look to how glass is made. Our patrons will be able to get an up close view and take part in a discussion about glass as an art form as well as a material. Glassblowing is something very few get a chance to try and not many more get a chance to even see. This featured demonstration will provide breathtaking entertainment as we will be watching 2000+ degree molten glass take on many shapes as the skilled hands of Neusoles’s craftsmen make items including vase’s, cups, goblets, bowls, and plates just to name a few. Seeing the glow from the furnace will be enough to get some peoples curiosity spiked, others will be inspired by how fluid the glass is, all the while everyone will be immediately stimulated by the team work and skill of the craftsmen.
The Arts N Action Tent provides an area where kids as well as adults can “get their hands dirty” so to speak. It will feature things like polymer clay bead making, a potters wheel, handmade gourd instruments, folk needlecraft, and Plein Air painters. This year will are excited to be bringing the Madison Jr. High Schools 8th grade art class to help with the village as well as showcase some of the art and the projects they have been working on. Getting kids involved in the arts is one of the best ways to promote creative thinking and that is what we do at the Folk Art Village.
The Jam Tent is a place to bring your instrument and Jam. This is a favorite among many visitors of the festival. We feature a core group of “Jammers” but all are allowed to speak their musical voice in the tent. We have several of our musical acts come and lead a session in the Jam Tent here is a few for this year Joe Crookston, Willie Watson, and The Haunted Windchimes will be jamming, also Darrell House, and Slam poet Ian French will be doing readings. Part of our out reach program is to share our artist’s talents with local schools the Elks has made possible a performance for the area high schools featuring Appalatin, and will also be bringing Darrel House back to preform for our local elementary schools.
The Primitive area is a place where you can step back in time and see how things were made before electricity. This is another part that is solely for the education of our patrons we want people to be able to experience what it would be like in an 1800’s era camp so we gather up re-enactors to wear their primitive clothing, put up their canvas wall tents and bring out their tools from a time gone by. This year we feature a blacksmith, a windsor chair maker, hand carved wood bowls, a fiddle maker, a muzzle loading gun maker, and hand spun yarn this is just to name a few. We take pride in the fact that our demonstrators are at the festival to do just that. We work hard to find exciting and informative people to work with our patrons and help make our event as entertaining and interactive as possible.
Our Handmade Marketplace is a place for handmade goods, we have a select number of skilled artists and craftsmen showcase their passion in hopes to ignite the passion of others. The marketplace is where you can interact with an artisan and learn about what they make, how they make it, as well as why they make it. Our marketplace features items like batik clothing, jewelry, tie-dyes, pottery, flame worked glass, face painting, handmade instruments, and hand sewn bags this is just a sample of the items available for purchase at the Folk Art Village.
In summary our Folk Art Village strives to provide a unique event that allows for our patrons to interact with craftsmen, artists, musicians, poets, and actors. We believe providing this service adds an educational aspect to the festival as well as gives our patrons something to not only take part in but take home with them. The Folk Art Village puts interactive education at the forefront of our purpose and that is what makes the village such a worthy cause.