Tuesday, March 6, 2018

SALEM ARTS FESTIVAL 10th ANNIVERSARY – CALL FOR PARTICIPATION



SALEM ARTS FESTIVAL 10th ANNIVERSARY – CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

 The Salem Arts Festival announces an invitation for the community to participate in the festival’s 10th year, running June 1 through June 3, 2018. Over 5,000 people regularly attend the family-friendly festival, transforming downtown Salem, MA into an opportunity for the arts community to showcase a wide range of talents. The festival includes a gallery of juried artists’ work in Old Town Hall, outdoor stage venues for performance and dance, an artist and artisan street fair, a collaborative public arts project, and much more!

"Salem is busting at the seams with visual artists, musicians, poets, dancers, makers, and creative individuals of all types. It’s one of the many reasons people love living and visiting here," said Kylie Sullivan, Executive Director of Salem Main Streets, co-organizer of the Salem Arts Festival. "In celebration of our 10 year anniversary, we will focus the festival around the Salem Main Streets themes of ‘Live, Work, Play.’ I’m very excited to see the different ways we can use the arts to explore what it means to live, work, and play in Salem.”

The Salem Arts Festival is especially pleased to announce that the festival, initially run as a project of Salem Main Streets, has expanded this year to be run in collaboration with the Creative Collective. The Creative Collective is a group of invested creative professionals with the mission of connecting creativity, community and commerce. John Andrews, Creative Director, shared his thoughts about this partnership. “I am very excited to partner on another project with Salem Main Streets and expand the impact that the festival has on Salem and support the over 100 artists, performers, artisan vendors, and creatives that participate in this dynamic event.”

Applications for performers and street fair vendors are now live at salemartsfestival.com, with a deadline of April 7th. The juried gallery will be selected by an on-site review process again this year, to be held the weekend before the festival, May 25 through May 28. Artists interested in the gallery should complete an Intent to Apply online in order to receive the most up-to-date information about the gallery process.

For the 5th year, we are including a community-built public art installation as part of the festival. Bee to Brick, this year's community art project, embraces the "Live, Work, Play" theme by celebrating some of the hardest "working" bugs out there - pollinators! Bee to Brick will install playful swarms of several hundred "bees" around the festival area, created entirely out of recycled plastic bottles and other reusable plastic pollution. After the project, the bees will be transformed into “bricks” by Phoenix School students for their “Bottle Brick Project.” We are currently looking for community groups who want to participate in a workshop, and/or individuals who can come to one of our Monday night workshops. All ages and abilities are enthusiastically encouraged to contribute, no skill set required. More information at www.salemartsfestival.com/bee-to-brick.

Last but certainly not least, planning is underway for the hottest event of the spring – our 5th annual Fashion Show fundraiser! On April 6th, the Salem Arts Festival will transform the upstairs floor of the beautiful and historic Old Town Hall at 32 Derby Square for a night of local fashion, food, drink, and fun in support of one of Salem’s greatest festivals. Information and ticket links are available at www.salemartsfestival.com/2018-fashion-show-fundraiser.

The Salem Arts Festival is organized by Salem Main Streets, the Creative Collective and a collaboration of Salem organizations which provide support for the festival, including the City of Salem, Salem State University, Salem Food Tours, the Phoenix School, Salem Public Space Project, the Salem YMCA, Peabody Essex Museum, and the Salem Arts Association. This program is supported in part by a grant from the Salem Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency. The festival also relies on the gracious support of its other creative partners, including Retonica Event Lighting, The Scarlet Letter Press, and Octocog Marketing and Design.

If you would like to support this dynamic annual cultural mainstay for its 10th anniversary celebration, please contact Robyn Gianoppolo at robyn@creativesalem.com or visit salemartsfestival.com/support

For more information about the Salem Arts Festival, please see www.salemartsfestival.com or contact Kylie Sullivan at kylie@salemmainstreets.org or (978)744-0004 (x115).


Kylie Sullivan
Executive Director, Salem Main Streets
265 Essex Street
Salem, MA 01970
978/744-0004 x15


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