The 53rd Art Festival is this Saturday

The 53rd Annual Lynchburg Art Festival is this Saturday

For fifty-three years, the Art Festival has brought the region's best fine art out from under gallery lights and onto an open lawn for one day. This year is the biggest yet: more than 100 artists from Virginia and neighboring states, and a full day of things to eat, see, and make.

Bring a friend. Bring a wagon if you plan to shop seriously.

Saturday, September 19 · 10am–4pm E.C. Glass High School grounds Free to attend · Rain date: Sunday, September 20

More than 100 artists. Nearly every medium you can name.

Watercolor, oil, pastel, encaustic, sculpture, drawing, acrylic, mixed media, and photography — booth after booth of it, with artists standing right there to talk about the work. A good number of this year's exhibitors are showing with us for the first time, so even if you've come every September for a decade, you'll find something you haven't seen before.

Artists are competing for more than $5,000 in awards, funded by local businesses and community members who believe this work is worth paying for.

Add your face to the Festival

We're building something together this year: a large self-portrait board that fills up over the course of the day with faces drawn by the people who make up this festival.

Stop by, pick up a marker, and add yourself. A line drawing. A doodle. A cartoon version of your own head. These are meant to be quick and fun, not finished work — the whole point is that it's spontaneous and made by everyone who walks through.

Artists, visitors, kids, people who insist they can't draw: especially people who insist they can't draw.

Meet the judge: Alex Grabiec

This year's awards will be judged by Alex Grabiec, a curator, artist, and educator based in rural Virginia. As curator of exhibitions at the Longwood Center for the Visual Arts, he organizes historic and contemporary shows and brings them directly into the classes he teaches.

His own photographic work looks at fatherhood and at how we come to see ourselves through images. He holds a BFA from Longwood University and an MFA in Photographic and Electronic Media from the Maryland Institute College of Art.

See his work at alexgrabiec.com​

The next generation, on the same lawn

The Festival also hosts a student exhibit celebrating the work of area high school artists, with cash awards for the standouts.

Judging the student work this year is Jon Roark, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Lynchburg and a recently retired member of Heritage High School's art department, where he was named Teacher of the Year in both 2009 and 2020. He has exhibited throughout the mid-Atlantic and is a signature member of the Virginia Watercolor Society.

More at jonroarkart.com​

A note about the oak

If you've been coming to the Festival for years, you know the tree — the enormous southern oak that has shaded this event for as long as most of us can remember, and stood on these grounds for something like three centuries before that.

The oak has been in decline, and it recently dropped a large limb. The school has roped off the area around it for everyone's safety, and we've rearranged part of our layout accordingly.

So the Festival will look a little different this year. Some fence spaces have moved, and the shade won't fall quite where it used to. Our team will be out in force to help artists and visitors get their bearings. We'd rather tell you now than have you wander the lawn looking for a landmark that's fenced off.

Three hundred years is a remarkable run. We're grateful for the shade.

Lunch, ice cream, and a library on wheels

The E.C. Glass theater students are running concessions again this year, taking Chick-fil-A orders and selling cold drinks — and they'll be circulating through the festival, so artists can order without leaving their booths. Buying lunch supports their program directly.

The Good Humor ice cream truck will be on the grounds, and the Mobile Library is joining us too. Bring the kids.

The Shirley D. Hobbs Scholarship Fund

Part of what the Festival earns goes straight back out again. Established in 2000, the Shirley D. Hobbs Scholarship is a four-year, $4,000 college scholarship awarded each year to an area high school senior pursuing a degree in art.

Before you head over

• When: Saturday, September 19, 10am–4pm
• Where: E.C. Glass High School grounds
• Cost: Free to attend
• Rain date: Sunday, September 20, same hours
• Bring: Cash and cards (payment methods vary by artist), sunscreen, water, and a way to carry what you buy

A word on parking. Two other events share the campus on Saturday — a volleyball tournament starting at 10am and a high school reunion later in the afternoon. Campus will be busier than usual. Come early if you can, and give yourself a few extra minutes to park.

Made possible by our sponsors

The awards, the scholarship, and the Festival itself exist because local businesses and community members put real money behind them. Please join us in thanking them — and when you're choosing where to spend locally, remember who shows up for the arts here.

See you Saturday!

Forward this to someone who'd love it. Share it. Then come find us — and draw your face on the board.

Follow along at Lynchburg Art Festival on Facebook and Instagram, or visit LynchburgArtClub.org.

ART CLUB MEMBERS: Please take one minute to VOTE on our new bylaws here! We need your vote!