The streets of Cherry Creek North are about to be filled with award-winning art, live music, and food vendors. And while the festival is not new to Denver — this is the festival’s 33rd year — this year organizers are expecting even bigger crowds.
The festival runs from Friday, July 5 - Sunday, July 7. The festivities start at 10 a.m. every day, with an accessibility hour starting at 9a.m. on Friday for Denverites with mobility concerns or who are daunted by large crowds.
This year, 250 artists representing 13 different mediums will have booths lining Second Avenue, in what organizers call one of the largest and most competitive art shows in the nation. Out of those artists, 35 are from Colorado.
Tara Brickell, Executive Director and CEO of CherryArts — the organization that puts on the festival every year, said that one of the main purposes of the festival is to help the artists who attend raise revenue.
Last year, the festival raised $4.2 million from the exhibiting artists in art sales alone.
“We believe in supporting artists and arts education,” Brickell said. “So the Cherry Creek Arts Festival is one of the ways that we can do that for artists.”
In addition to being an opportunity for artists to display and sell their artwork, the festival will feature live music all weekend on Fillmore Street — featuring musicians of a variety of genres, everything from Jazz to Country.
Here’s the music lineup for the weekend
Friday, July 5
- 10:45 a.m. Kaitlyn Williams, Alt Pop
- 12:45 p.m. Dotsero, Jazz
- 2:45 p.m. Ghost Tapes, Modern Soul
- 4:45 p.m. Selasee and the FaFa Family, World Music
- 6:45 p.m. Soul School, Funk
Saturday, July 6
- 10:45 a.m. Manycolors, Country
- 12:45 p.m. Guerrilla Fanfare, Jazz / funk
- 2:45 p.m. Quemando Salsa, Salsa
- 4:45 p.m. The Radio, Rock / Pop / Funk / Soul / R&B
- 6:45 p.m. DJ Fa’Dorah, Soul / Funk / Disco
Sunday, July 7
- 10:45 a.m. Iron Prophecy, Reggae
- 12:45 p.m. Mary Louise Lee Band, R&B / Contemporary Jazz
- 2:45 p.m. Mojomama, Funky Blues Rock
- 4:45 p.m. Groove ‘N Motion, Jazz / Horns
If jamming out to live music isn’t your thing, you could grab a bite to eat from one of the 30 food vendors lining Fillmore Street — all of which are local Colorado restaurants and food trucks.
The festival will also feature a number of activities and events for families and students — including a Creation Station on the corner of St. Paul and 2nd Avenue. The interactive station is a chance for children and families to create their own artwork. Visitors are encouraged to contribute to a mural and learn about art from around the world.
But for Brickell, who is a mother of two, her favorite part of the festival are the student art buying presentations. The CherryArts Student Art Buying Program gives Colorado students the opportunity to purchase original artwork from the festival. Students from 24 schools around the state are given a budget of $500 to purchase artwork for permanent installation in their schools.
“The art buying experience is really empowering for my students,” said Angela Alexander, an art teacher at Heatherwood Elementary School in Gunbarrel. “When students are surrounded by so many amazing pieces of art, it forces them to use critical thinking skills to answer the question, ‘what does make a good piece of art? What make art valuable?’ They then have amazing connections when we get back into the classroom in the fall.”
Alexander, who has been involved in the art buying program for the last decade, chooses three rising 5th graders each year to be art-buying ambassadors of the elementary school.
“We refer to them as art-repreneurs,” she said of her students.
She says that the art buying program allows her students to learn and practice important conversation and negotiation skills, public speaking, and they get the opportunity to use some of their art vocabulary.
This particular program, as well as many of the other initiatives like CherryArt’s emerging artist grant program, is funded through the festival itself.
“When people come to the festival and they're buying things like beverages or merchandise, or they're shopping on our online art auction, they're directly supporting things like outreach to emerging artists or our programs that go into schools,” Brickell said.
Festival-goers are also encouraged to attend the Art Auction Gallery that features donated work from 90 festival artists, with proceeds benefiting arts education in Colorado.
