The Greenway Art Festival Returns to Old Fort Park for a 22nd Year
The Greenway Art Festival returns to Old Fort Park on Saturday, September 19 for its twenty-second year, with local artists set up along the greenway trail from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. It is one of the easier art events to bring children to, for a reason that has nothing to do with the art: it is outdoors, and it is linear.
A gallery you can walk off
Indoor art shows ask children to be quiet and careful in a confined space. This one is spread along a paved trail through Old Fort Park, which means a child who has run out of patience can simply keep walking while you finish looking. The greenway is stroller-friendly and pushchair-wide, and the park itself absorbs restless energy in a way a gallery never will.
Six hours is a generous window. There is no need to plan around a start time — turn up when your morning allows, walk as much of it as everyone can stand, and leave when you are done.
What is on show
Work runs across oil painting and watercolour, pottery, textiles, metalwork, glass and jewellery, and all of it is for sale. The festival holds a strict line on what may be displayed: every piece must be original and made by the artist standing beside it. Nothing mass-produced, nothing assembled from a kit or cast from a commercial mould. That rule is the whole character of the event — you are meeting makers, not browsing a market stall.
It also makes for a better conversation with children. Most of these artists are glad to explain how a pot is thrown or why a piece of glass ends up that colour, and a ten-minute explanation from the person who actually made the thing lands harder than any amount of encouragement to appreciate art.
Details
The festival is run by the Cultural Arts division of the city's parks and recreation department and gathers at the Old Fort Park Trailhead, 275 Golf Lane. Mid-September in Middle Tennessee can still turn warm by lunchtime, so morning is the more comfortable half of the day; bring water and sun cover. If you intend to buy, carry a card and some cash, as individual artists handle their own sales.
More to do with the family this season is on our Family Events calendar.
