taylorsville

An exciting day of innovative, hands on arts and heritage activities is planned for the Hiddenite Arts & Heritage Center’s 37th Annual Hiddenite Celebration of the Arts. This one-of-a-kind, arts and cultural heritage festival will be held on Saturday, September 22, 2018 on Hiddenite Church Road in Alexander County from 9:00am until 4:00pm.

Celebration of the Arts is a free admission street festival that features unique, family friendly arts and cultural heritage activities for all ages.

The Center’s Hiddenite Celebration of the Arts festival has featured diversely talented artists, crafters, and performers since 1981.

Celebration of the Arts offers the opportunity to shop for fine arts, crafts and jewelry, handmade papers and journals, home décor treasures, artisan crafted wooden bowls, fiber arts, regional pottery, and more. The festival also includes commercial vendors, a wide variety of food vendors, and information booths from local businesses and civic organizations.

In the Celebration Folk Life Pavilion, visitors will experience hands on demonstrations in folkways such as butter churning, broom making, blacksmithing, and weaving, just to name a few.
Celebration of the Arts has four live performance stages featuring diverse offerings in music and dance. The festival line up will include country and bluegrass music, clogging and Irish step dance, folk and gospel music, jazz, and modern dance.

Centered on the lawn of the Lucas Mansion, Celebration’s popular Art in Action area will provide hands on activities that include a new, Living Storybook feature sponsored by the Alexander County Library, a poetry wall sponsored by Teen Poetry Happens, and large scale chalk board canvases for public art.

Art in Action will also feature a live mural painting by Iredell County artist, Patrick Harris. Festival visitors can watch as Harris completes a mobile mural that will be inspired by the Center and the Lucas Mansion.

The Hiddenite Arts & Heritage Center’s Historic James Paul Lucas Mansion museum, art gallery, permanent collections, and the Alexander County Visitor Center (housed within the Lucas Mansion) will be open for visitors throughout the day.

The Lucas Mansion Gallery will feature watercolor paintings by Zan Thompson of Conover, NC. Thompson’s exhibit, “Celebrating Life, Work, and Play,” will be free for all visitors to enjoy throughout the day.

Self-guided Lucas Mansion Museum tours will be available at a reduced cost of only $1 per person on Celebration of the Arts day. All other Lucas Mansion exhibits are free and open to the public.