Perfect festival weather brought out the crowds and buyers for the 48th annual Lewiston Art Festival, held on August 9th-10th in the quaint village of Lewiston, NY. Both days were sun-filled with temps in the upper 70's to mid-80's with a slight breeze at times. Direct sunlight overhead brought patrons into tree-shaded booths. All artists' booths, with the exception of the emerging "College Alley" participants, were lined up on both sides of the closed-to-traffic Center Street, facing towards the street. Most of the public walked up one side and down the other. With 165 artist booths, this was fairly easy to do, especially since there were many decent food booths and specialty foods peppered in between with simple, outdoor dining tents at a few cross-streets. Strolling musicians and artist demos were also interspersed throughout the street.
Sponsored by the Arts Council, there were two sets of awards: one for the street chalk competition and one for the participating artists with $5000 being awarded at an artists' breakfast at a local restaurant on Sunday morning. The judges awarded 4 awards in eight categories, though only for specific works at the artist's discretion, which were brought to a judging hall. In addition, one award for overall booth design was given.
This was a fun, casual show with easy set-up and breakdown (no advance check-in as all artists are "pre-registered" and cars were ready to come onto the street just five minutes after the show closed). The people who visited the show are regional (Lewiston, Niagara, Buffalo, Rochester with a fair amount of Canadian visitors) and seem devoted. I juried into two categories, exhibiting my line of porcelain jewelry and decorative porcelain wares. I enjoyed brisk sales all day on Saturday and almost equally on Sunday, with many of my "be-backs" actually returning to purchase. Overwhelmingly, the sales were of the jewelry (about 80%) to that of my claywork, though I was awarded a Third Place award for a sculptural vessel. The photographer next to me had been there for three years consecutively and was pleased with his sales and the airbrush artist with animal portraits was almost giddy regarding her sales. I witnessed many large paintings being walked down the street. Though most of my sales were single sales under $50, I did have several decent multi-purchases and the largest, single item was just under $200, so I do believe that the patrons are a tad price-conscious. Overall, I thought the balance of media was very good with a lot of diversity and the quality was good (7 on a scale from 1-10), though some of the art was outstanding.
I was very pleasantly surprised by many things. I had only participated in this show once before and that was about nine years ago. THIS was not that show. It was staged differently, no vintage cars, the street was closed to traffic, it was so much larger and far better attended. If there hadn't been the poutine fries and the French artichokes, I wouldn't have thought I was at the same show. I thought that the Arts Council did a fine job and I will be delighted to return next year.
