Summerlin Art Festival

This high quality arts and craft show was limited to 200 vendors this year with many applicants being turned away. Our first stop was to watch Chef Chanh Boupha from the nearby Cordon Bleu of Culinary Arts carve fruit into the shape of flowers. We managed to tour the entire show over the course of two hours stopping at a number of booths to enjoy the diversity of art and crafts on display. My wife added a hand crafted gold bracelet by MerriJane Morison to her jewelry collection and I purchased a mass produced diet cola by Pepsi.

Call it the weekend of festivals — the last weekend of September and Las Vegas has a weekend packed with events! I’m sure it has to do what everyone hopes and expects the weather to be like — hot, but not too hot, and everyone just getting into the beginning of autumn.
2010 was a different September however. That last weekend was the mother of hot weekends and although all festivals were in full swing, patrons paid for it for sure!
Summerlin’s Art Festival took place on September 25^th and 26^th, and we braved the heat on the last day for just a little while to explore the arts and crafts being offered. It was their ninth year doing this event, and it was a celebration of two events — La Strada dell’Arte and Celebration of the Arts. (La Strada dell’Arte is a Summerlin street painting festival that hails from Italy, while the Celebration of the Arts features artists and craftsmen from throughout the US in an outdoor art festival environment.)
First off, plenty of parking for this event and what a nice grass set up they have! (Although more garbage cans from the parking lot to and from the festival would be useful.) Vendors ranging from nearby hotels to food booths occupy one area by the stage, and then you get to the area where all the artists and craftsmen are showing off their wares. You’ll find paintings, glasswork, metal, potpourri, sculpture work, jewelry, etc. Entertainment includes ice carvings and food displays along with live musicians.
And then you can wander around and check out the sidewalk chalk art that is going on. Pretty impressive stuff, if you ask me. You can also ‘purchase’ your own patch of sidewalk if you want to contribute your own amateur artwork.
One other important thing — it’s a FREE event!
Overall, it’s nice to see so many activities happening in Las Vegas. It was just unfortunate that it was so unbearably hot that most people couldn’t stick around long enough to enjoy everything. Nonetheless, I’ll be looking forward to the last weekends of September for sure!