A Rockford art fair is returning for its 73rd annual celebration this Saturday. But things will be a little different and not just because of the pandemic.
Carrie Johnson is the executive director and curator at Rockford Art Museum which stages the Greenwich Village Art Fair. She said the main change was taking it down from two days to one.
“A lot of our committee from two years ago has retired,” Johnson explained. “So, we were starting with a new committee and new committee chairs. So going into it, we just thought, let's do the best that we can on a smaller staff, a smaller committee.”
There will still be a music venue, but things are more spread out due to COVID-19 restrictions. Instead of the museum staff cooking on site, food trucks will be brought in. The goal was to include 50 to 75 artists and the target was hit.
“So. we are at 58 artists. And we've got -- on top of that -- four collectives from The Rockford area,” she added. “So, we've got 317 Art Collective, Fatherless,Fraim and Mortar and Gem. And we've got 10 vendors on top of that. So that includes some t-shirt designers, some other vendors that are not necessarily fine art vendors."
The fair starts at 10 a.m. and runs until 6 p.m. Sept. 18 outside on the grounds of the museum, 711 N. Main St. in downtown Rockford. The evening concludes with an after-party that continues until 9:30 p.m. at the Burpee Amphitheater. Entrance to the fair is $5. An online option will run through the weekend.
- Yvonne Boose is a current corps member for Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruth Project. It's a national service program that places talented journalists in local newsrooms like WNIJ. You can learn more about Report for America at wnij.org.
