Artwork by Debo Groover, the featured artist for the 2023 Moss Rock Festival in Hoover, Alabama.
The Moss Rock Festival last year celebrated butterflies, but this year the eco-creative festival is highlighting another creature in the air — birds.
The 18th annual Moss Rock Festival, which celebrates art, nature, creative designs and ways that people can live wisely to sustain the natural environment, is taking a cue from the state’s tourism department, which designated 2023 as the “year of Alabama birding.”
Organizers of the festival, set for Nov. 4-5 at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium, chose Tallahassee artist Debo Groover, who showcases birds in many of her mixed media pieces, as this year’s featured artist.
Groover and her art have been at the Moss Rock Festival before, but she won’t actually be able to make it to the festival in person this year, said Alex Kunzman, co-director of the festival. However, she is sending a collection of her artwork to be prominently displayed, and her work will be for sale.
Kunzman said organizers chose Groover because they just love her creations. “They’re just very colorful and whimsical,” he said. “They’re just a lot of fun.”
The poster for this year’s festival, created by Groover, features three birds on top of one another, with the bottom bird standing on a birdhouse. They are surrounded by colorful plant sprigs.
Groover was raised in Savannah, Georgia, and got a master of fine arts degree in ceramics from the University of Georgia.
She spent half of her career as a potter but then began experimenting with polymer clay, using colorful and patterned sheets of clay like fabric collage. The clay itself is paper-thin and tactile. The subjects of her paintings are created with clay, and the background is textured acrylic paint.
The Moss Rock Festival plans to have Groover’s work paired with photographs of birds shot by members of the Alabama Audubon Society, Kunzman said.
Also, the Alabama Wildlife Center, which has been absent from the show the past year or two, will be back this year with some of the birds that it is rehabilitating, he said. The Alabama Plein Air Artists group also is supposed to have some of its members there doing live paintings, mainly of birds, Kunzman said.
In all, there will be about 110 artists on display at this year’s festival, featuring a variety of mediums such as clay, digital art, drawings, fiber, furniture, glass, jewelry, leather, metalwork, paintings, photography, printmaking, sculptures, watercolors, woodworking and mixed media.
The artists who are chosen have work that either depicts nature, is influenced or inspired by nature, uses natural materials or uses recycled or repurposed objects in the art, Kunzman said.
Photo by Erin Nelson
People stroll the artist booths at the 2022 Moss Rock Festival in Hoover, Alabama, on Sunday, Nov. 6, 2022
Smart living and nature
The festival also each year has a “smart living market” that features items for everyday living that include fresh, organic, locally made, sustainable products and consumables in the areas of food, home décor, body and health products and technology.
The Walden Farmacy, part of an organic farm in Bessemer, will have a booth that includes herbal medicine and other natural remedies. The company specializes in organic and wild-harvested tinctures, elixirs, bitters, salves, herbal blends and teas. The farm’s market garden features baby kale, arugula, radishes and microgreens this fall, and by request, the farm has started selling some of its home-brewed and often wild-harvested kombucha, with flavors such as root beer, ginger yuzu and ginger lime.
Sachai Tea, a Birmingham company that was founded in 2015, will have tea grown by small tea farmers in India. Sachai also produces authentic chai concentrates with all-natural ingredients that include whole spices and organic assam tea from India.
Nature exhibitors at the festival will include the Freshwater Land Trust, Ruffner Mountain Nature Preserve, Cahaba Riverkeeper, Alabama Mushroom Society, High Point Climbing & Fitness and Hoover Beautification Board.
Collin Williams, an art professor from the University of Montevallo who leads a Take Root project to distribute trees, will be giving away five oak trees plus pollinator seeds for plants that sustain birds and butterfly populations in Alabama, Kunzman said. People will have an opportunity to learn about different kinds of trees, he said.
Festival organizers also have animals near and dear to their hearts, so other organizations scheduled to be there include the Shelby Humane Society, Kitty Kat Haven & Rescue and Gentle Wolf dog training company. There will be animals available to adopt.
The Wonderkid Studio will be a place where children can take part in interactive art workshops, with some of the projects inspired by birds.
And the festival will have Planet Projects on display, which are art projects undertaken by children at various schools. This year’s theme is “Chirp Chirp — Birds of Alabama,” so the students will learn about birds that are native to the state and then make bird-related sculptures, Kunzman said. The children are encouraged to use natural and recycled materials to create abstract, large sculptures, he said.
Photo by Erin Nelson
Norman Morgan works on a jewelry piece during the Moss Rock Festival at the Hoover Met Complex on Sunday, Nov. 6, 2022.
Food and drinks
What would a festival be without food? The Café by the Woods will include Rae Rae’s Catering, which offers Polish sausages, jumbo hot dogs, chili and slaw dogs, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, Philly beef and chicken cheese steak sandwiches, nachos, pulled pork and chicken, chips, lemonade and fruit punch.
There also will be numerous food trucks, including Eugene’s Hot Chicken, Not Ya Average Leaf (a vegetarian food truck), Porky’s Pride Smokehouse, The Recipe, Sons Donuts + Pops and Coca-Cola. A Red Diamond food truck will be giving away coffee and tea, Kunzman said.
For those who like alcoholic beverages, the festival for the 12th year will have a beer garden featuring at least 50 craft brews. Scheduled participants include Alabama breweries such as Brock’s Gap Brewery, Ghost Train Brewing, Cahaba Brewing, Trim Tab, Avondale Brewery, Siluria Brewing Co., United-Johnson Brother of Alabama, Goat Island Brewery, Yellowhammer Brewing and Straight to Ale, as well as some brewers from out of state, Kunzman said.
Other participants will include a Free the Hops group with beer floats and the Carboy Junkies home brewers, he said.
Moss Rock’s “sweetery” also will return with vendors such as Over the Top Toffee and Nana Bakes.
The two-day festival will include performances of music, dance and poetry and other demonstrations on the Crescent Stage.
2023 Moss Rock Festival
WHERE: Hoover Metropolitan Stadium
WHEN: Saturday, Nov. 4, 10 a.m-5 p.m.; Sunday, Nov. 5, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
COST: $11 in advance; $15 at gate (two-day admission); kids 16 and under free
BEER GARDEN TICKETS: $35 in advance; $45 at gate (beer garden is 12:30-3 p.m.)
PARKING: Free at Finley Center with shuttles
WEB: mossrockfestival.com
CRESCENT STAGE PERFORMANCES
Saturday
· 10:15-10:30 a.m. — Alabama Mushroom Society
· 10:35-11:05 a.m. — Alabama Wildlife Center Showcase with Plein Air Painters
· 11:10-11:30 a.m. — IAmGreatness Poetic Expression
· 11:35 a.m.-12:10 p.m. — Khloe Isabella
· 12:15-12:40 p.m. — Dala Dance Co.
· 12:45-1 p.m. — IAmGreatness Poetic Expression
· 1-1:15 p.m. — Alabama Wildlife Center Showcase with Plein Air Partners
· 1:30-2:10 p.m. — Iron Giant
· 2:15-2:40 p.m. — Wyrd Arts Group
· 2:45-3:40 p.m. — Alabama School of Fine Arts Jazz Ensemble
· 3:50-4:30 p.m. — Orange Bunny
· 4:35-5:15 p.m. — Cheyloe & Kyle
Sunday
· 10:30-11 a.m. — Alabama Mushroom Society
· 11-11:30 a.m. — Alabama Wildlife Center Showcase with Plein Air Painters
· 11:35 a.m.-12:10 p.m. — IAmGreatness Poetic Expression
· 12:10-12:30 p.m. — The Mad Hatter Dance Co.
· 12:35-1 p.m. — Alabama Wildlife Center Showcase with Plein Air Painters
· 1:10-2 p.m. — Rebecca Egeland
· 2-3 p.m. — Bob Marston
· 3-4 p.m. — Americana’s Grandson
