Photo by Jon Anderson.
Lauren McCormick of Bluff Park tries her hand at painting during the 2019 Bluff Park Art Show. After being canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the art show is back this year.
After being canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bluff Park Art Show is back this year, once again on the first Saturday in October: Oct. 2.
Organizers are calling it the 58th annual show even though the 57th annual show was canceled.
This year’s show is scheduled to feature 130 artists from eight states, including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Virginia, said Heather Skaggs, a board member and spokeswoman for the Bluff Park Art Association.
The artists will showcase a wide variety of mediums, including painting, woodworking, pottery, jewelry, leather, textiles, metal, glass, photography and mixed media, Skaggs said. Sixteen of them will be first-time participants in the show, she said.
Skaggs said board members are excited to be able to bring the show back this year.
2021 Bluff Park Art Show
WHERE: Park at Shades Cliff, 517 Cloudland Drive (parking off site with shuttles)
WHEN: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 2
COST: Free admission
WEB: bluffparkartassociation.org
“It was heartbreaking to have to cancel the show last year, but all of us felt, given the information we had, it was the smartest and safest thing to do,” Skaggs said.
Artists were slow to sign up in 2020. Eventually, there were enough to make the show work financially, but there still were concerns about conducting the show safely and whether it could be pulled off with social distancing, Skaggs said.
One big concern was getting the 10,000 or so estimated people who usually attend back and forth between parking areas and the park where the show is held. Normally, school buses are used as shuttles, but organizers were concerned about having to space people out more than usual and sanitizing the buses between trips, she said.
Another concern was spacing at the show itself. Normally, booths are lined up right up against each other.
This year, “we are proceeding on with caution, but we do not expect the show to be canceled this year,” Skaggs said.
The Bluff Park Art Show is a juried show and one of the longest-running art shows in Alabama.
The Bluff Park Art Association usually gives out about a dozen awards, ranging in price from $300 for the popular vote award to $3,500 for the association’s Permanent Collection Purchase Award — the top prize.
This year’s judge is Cynthia Malinick, the director and chief curator for Auburn University’s Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art. She has more than 25 years of experience in the art world and now oversees the museum’s 40,000-square-foot modernist building, which includes six galleries, an auditorium, museum shop and café.
Before coming to Auburn University, Malinick served as the vice president for cultural assets with the Girl Scouts of the USA. She managed the group’s curatorial collection, including fine and decorative arts, furnishings, textiles and jewelry. Under her leadership, the Girl Scouts organization launched multiple facility upgrades and implemented the group’s first open-access online resource designed to showcase its digitized collections.
The Bluff Park Art Show will be from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the park at 517 Cloudland Drive, next to the Shades Cliff Pool, but people park off site and take shuttles. Parking areas include Bluff Park United Methodist Church, Shades Crest Baptist Church and Shades Mountain Community Church. Masks are required on the buses.
Jordan Beam and Drury and Friends will be providing musical entertainment at the art show, and there will be a Kids Art Hut sponsored by Girl Scout Troop 746 for children ages 4 and older at a cost of $6 per hour. Masks will be required in the Kids Art Hut.
Food trucks scheduled to be at the art show include GR's Smokehouse, Eugene's Hot Chicken, Urban Pops, Pazzo Big Slice Pizza, Travelin' Tom's Coffee of Hoover, Pints & Popsicles, SnoBiz Birmingham, Alabama Peanut Co. and Taqueria Juarez.
Organizers are welcoming volunteers to help at the event and sponsors for awards. Sponsorships begin at $100. To become a sponsor, email bpaa.sponsorships@gmail.com or bluffparkartshow@gmail.com.
For more information about the art show, go to bluffparkartassociation.org/art-show-schedule.
