Marblehead Festival of Arts Features Art Exhbits

The Marblehead Festival of Arts will host its 47th annual Arts Festival in downtown Marblehead from June 30-July 4. This North Shore favorite is home to fine arts exhibits, including Crafts, Drawing, Painting, Printmaking, Photography, Mixed Media and Sculpture, as well as special exhibits featuring Youth Art, Student Art and Senior Art. The Festival also sponsors plein aire painting, known as Painting-the-Town.

Artists from all over Essex County participate in the many types of art, which take place at various venues around town. Exhibits, with free admission, are open Saturday, June 30, 10 am to 5 pm; Sunday, July 1, noon to 5 pm (Abbot Hall exhibits open at 10 am); Monday, July 2, 1 to 5 pm; Tuesday, July 3, 1 to 5 pm; and Wednesday, July 4, 10 am to 5 pm.

Awards Night, which precedes the official opening of the Festival, will be held Friday evening, June 29, outside Abbot Hall, 188 Washington Street. The public is invited to share in this celebration, from 6:30 to 7:30 pm, to recognize the artists who created outstanding original works in all of the juried categories. Art exhibits will then be open, from 7:45 to 9:00 pm, at Abbot Hall, St Michael’s Church, Old Town House, Unitarian Universalist Church and Old North Church.

Housed at Abbot Hall are Crafts, Drawing, Painting and Printmaking, all juried exhibits. Crafts features handcrafts of a traditional or contemporary nature including calligraphy, collage, furniture, jewelry, pottery, quilts and stained glass. Drawing utilizes charcoal, conte crayon, pencil, pen and ink and other drawing materials. Painting is done in oil, acrylic and watercolor. Printmaking features etching, engraving, drypoint, silkscreen, lithography, monoprint, woodcut engraving and other accepted forms of the art.

St. Michael’s Church, 26 Pleasant Street, is home to Mixed Media and Sculpture, both juried exhibits. Mixed Media is artwork in two or more traditional or nontraditional media in a single composition, with an emphasis on but not limited to paint, collage, drawing, image transfer, assemblage, paper mache, textiles, wax and found objects. Sculpture is art which has been cut, carved, chiseled, cast, welded or molded in any medium into a three dimensional form.

Photography is found at Old Town House in Market Square. It is a juried exhibit of black-and-white and color photographs.

The Unitarian Universalist Church, 28 Mugford Street, houses Senior Art, a non-juried exhibit of original work by persons 60 years of age and older. Categories include crafts, drawing, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture and wood carvings. Also at the church is the Logo Exhibit, featuring this year’s winning logo, the finalists and semi-finalists, and logos from past years; Writers’ World, with a collection of juried short fiction, essays, and poetry; and the Literary Arts Café.

Old North Church, 35 Washington Street, has the non-juried Student Art and Youth Art Exhibits. Student Art, representing the work of students in grades 5-12, includes calligraphy, crafts, drawing, mixed media, painting, photography, printmaking and sculpture. Youth Art features works by students in preschool through grade 4, and includes crafts, drawing, painting, photography, printmaking and sculpture.

The King Hooper Mansion, 8 Hooper Street, is home of the Marblehead Arts Association (MAA) and houses the Painting-the-Town Exhibit and the MAA July Member Exhibit. Painting-the-Town, or plein aire painting, features the work of artists who will have painted outdoors on Saturday, June 30. They will create fresh works, often done rapidly, that capture the essence of a scene and the weather with a unique charm, unlike the more careful studies produced in a studio.

Please note that most of the art is for sale. Purchasing a work benefits both the artist and the Festival, which receives a commission on all sales. Prices are listed in the printed Festival Program, available at all exhibit locations.