The three rules of real estate – location, location, location – also apply to the Evergreen Arts Festival.
“I think the location is extremely important,” said artist Danna Cuin.
Festival coordinator Tricia Bass, also an artist, agreed: “Partially, it’s the setting.”
The festival, at 39 years old one of the longest-running of its kind in Colorado, takes place Saturday and Sunday.
Other artists asked about the festival also were quick to mention its location.
Cuin explained why. “The festival is in a beautiful grove of ponderosa pines that are over 300 years old. And it is a preserved site. And next to the grove is the Hiwan Homestead Museum.”
Bass and Cuin are both members of the Evergreen Artist’s Association, which stages the festival as a fundraiser. The festival setting not only draws visitors to the festival but also artists from around the country.
Each year, 350 or more applicants submit slides of their work, hoping the five judges deem it worthy of one of 110 booths. That results in an outstanding art and fine crafts, according to artists and organizers.
The festival has spent more than half its life in the grove, but it started in 1966 as a one-day event on Main Street in Evergreen.
“We just decided we needed an outside fair to display our things,” said Jon Powers, a Bailey artist and association member.
Some businesses even closed for the day to open their parking lots to festivalgoers.
“They didn’t shut down Main Street in Evergreen,” artist and association member Beth Erlund said. “The cars just had to go around the artists and the people walking around.”
The show was opened only to members of the association and was not judged. As its popularity grew, nonmember artists showed up and tried to sell their works.
“Our first couple of years, I guess part of my title was bouncer,” Powers said. “I got to ask certain people to close up and move out.”
He usually performed that duty without a second thought.
“The only time I really, really felt bad was when a little boy was selling painted rocks,” Powers said. “I kind of just pulled him aside and told him, ‘You can’t be in the main aisle.’ You know, the kid’s trying. He’s got the right idea. Don’t discourage him. So I just tried to get him out of the main path a little.”
Erlund said the festival’s popularity and outside artists clamoring to get in led to a juried show.
“They started judging it so you wouldn’t have the Sunday painters and the (low-quality) crafty kind of stuff,” she said. “They wanted it to be more of a fine art (and fine crafts) show.”
Organizers also decided to limit the number of booths to 110, even after the show outgrew Main Street and moved to the grove in the late 1970s.
“It developed a standard of excellence,” Bass said. “I kind of see us as a miniature Cherry Creek (Arts Festival), where the difference is we have much more experience than the people at Cherry Creek. We are smaller, but we are kind of at that standard.”
Aurora artists Linda and Rick Bachman have shown their whimsical wooden kinetic sculptures several times at the Evergreen festival.
“This is really a very nice easygoing festival,” Linda Bachman said. “Its attendance is great, and the quality is great.”
She said the parklike atmosphere also drew the couple to the festival, as did the wide variety of arts shown. Its location and size allow for easy browsing. That means more sales.
“Our sales are wonderful and pretty consistent from year to year,” Bachman said. “The visitors we have are there to buy nice artwork, and sales fall right in line.”
Staff writer Ed Will can be reached at 303-820-1694 or ewill@denverpost.com.
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Evergreen Arts Festival
FINE ARTS AND CRAFTS|Heritage Grove Park, 4208 S. Timbervale Drive, Evergreen, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; no pets allowed | free|303-679-1609 or evergreenartists.org
