Cottonwood Arts Festival

A few hundred art vendors set up shop at a nice park. This is pure arts — no crafts, no novelties — just paintings and sculptures. Artists come from all over the country to exhibit and it’s definitely worth a couple hours of my time.
They do it Fall and Spring. Admission is free, but food concessions are incredibly expensive.

This biannual festival is located in Cottonwood Park right off of Belt Line. It’s a nice little place with a small pond, bridge and green area. There’s rows of artists’ booths, live music, food and drink. There’s a bag check at the front and plenty of police watchtowers. Prison camp or art festival? Who knows. The ambiguity is very artistic.
Unfortunately, I was not terribly impressed by the majority of the art on display. Maybe the noisy crowds had put me in a bad mood, but a lot of the art was an assault on the senses. A lot of it ranged from grotesque to amateurish product that would blend in seamlessly at Big Lots!, At Home (formerly Garden Ridge) or maybe Wal-​Mart, until you see the comparatively high asking prices. But there were a few bright spots. I was very impressed with the oil paintings by Nathan Anderson, the ink pen pieces by Yan Lee, and the handmade kaleidoscopes by Mark and Carol Reynolds. A full list of exhibitors can be found here
But art is always subjective so you may find that the art here is superb.

We have been attending for many years. Semi annual event in the spring and fall. Organizers seem to be making improvements all the time with new vendors and amenities for the visitors. I sort of like the informal dog show see photos.

A co-​worker suggested I check the Cottonwood Arts Festival. I’d honestly forgotten about it until I passed it on the way to church. I decided to check it out since I was literally right next to it after church.
The artists are very talented and their pieces were unique and impressive. The artists had paintings, jewelry, clocks, wall art, clothing and etc. Parking wasn’t bad at all. There were also officers directing traffic. Entry was free and there were plenty of places to sit in the shade and the weather was really great when I attended. They did have vendors for food, beer and wine. The food lines were a bit long so I passed on those. If you haven’t been GO. It’s a nice experience but the pieces are costly so keep that in mind.

I love this festival. It happens twice a year and every time we hit it up, the wife and I get a beer and just look at all the wonderful art work that they have. I obviously can’t afford most of it, but its nice being able to see the talent that our culture gives to us. Parking is easy to find from every place imaginable… and the police presence is always nice. Great job festival organizers… and props to the City of Richardson! You guys always have your shit together unlike Plano, which is a cluster f@@k with their festival.

I’m not much of a ‘festival’ person. I’m not into all that it takes to attend: fight traffic to get there; limited parking; moving around in a tight crowd; have overpriced horrible food options forced on me; and then fight traffic to get home.
The Richardson Cottonwood Art Festival (annually the 1^st weekend in Oct) is none of the above! First, the art is curated, participation is limited to 200; no mass produced art is permitted; and the artists must be present (there is no selling by a 3^rd party non-​artist vendor). These are just some of the strict criteria required to show at this festival and you can see the results in the quality of work on display.
Second, this is a reasonable sized event in a lovely park setting with water features and shaded trees. I was there on a Sunday, maybe Saturday might have had more people, but the day I attended there was a very comfortable number. This reduces the line time for bio-​necessities (food and elimination) and I think reduces aberrant behavior from tired, hot, irritated fellow festival attendees.
Third, the food was actually good! Sure there were the typical offerings of various meats on a stick; funnel cakes; and monster bags of kettle popcorn, but there were so rather healthy options too.
I had a fish taco from Aw Shucks (first time with their food). The grilled fillet was well-​seasoned, topped with a crunchy tangy cabbage slaw and generous chunks of avocado. Now I may seek out one of their locations to have it again.
I don’t eat red or white meat so I didn’t try the gyro, but it was reported to be tasty. I also tried a Nutella & Banana crêpe… OK, not exactly healthy; but, it did include fresh bananas. It was a little tough on the bottom side, but the filling had a good flavor.
The bands were also good, sat and listened to Definitely Maybe and really enjoyed their performance of some good tunes of past years. All in all, this is a festival experience that I can recommend and plan to attend again.

I went to the Art Festival today and had a wonderful day at the park. Admission is free. There are lots of cool paintings, photography and other handmade art forms. There was a stage and the music and bands that I heard were very good. I saw some unusual artwork like wall hangings made from woven aluminum and rocking chairs made from unusual materials. Pretty much everything was out of my budget, but it was fun to look. Most items range from the hundreds to thousands of dollars.
To eat, I had some Cuban Food and some roasted sweet almonds. The food section wasn’t huge, but it had enough variety. There were Cuban Empanadas, another trailer serving exotic meats like elk, another one serving Crepes stuffed with either sweet or savory ingredients, and several more options. There was also fresh squeezed lemonade stands scattered throughout the park.
The park itself is a nice setting. There is the stream or river which offers a nice view and many of the booths are lined up underneath trees which offered welcome shade from the sun. Since it’s free, I will surely be going back next time they have it.

Looking for a unique art piece for your house? Start here. If you want true artwork by experts, this festival is for you.
Never heard of it? I’m not suprised. I swear they don’t advertise and live on word of mouth. It’s free entry and a great way to see truly unique art in a lovely outdoor setting. Bring your wallet and paid-​off credit cards. Items range from $ 10-​$ 10,000. Yep, it’s good, and priced that way.
Also, stop by the high school art tent. Their displays are quite impressive, especially for a group of young ‘uns.
(If you prefer bedazzled clothing, corney dogs, T-​shirts, crafty items, etc., go to Mayfest or Dallas Artfest instead. Those events have more mass appeal.)
Food is in the center, and south side. Kids art area is on the west side. Performance stage is in the center, with the only beer/​wine sales. Parking is on side streets or at the high school stadium lot (with a shuttle). Plenty of dogs (on leash) too. Safe? Clean? Easy to find? Popular? You bet. Staff and police everywhere, especially helping with traffic across Beltline.

We went to this festival last year. It was advertised everywhere as free admission, so we went for some kids activities for our 5 year old. To my surprise nothing was free there, nothing except to look at art people sell. They had 4 – 5 kids activities, each was $ 1-​$ 3. Ended up spending around $ 10 to make some paper origami, paper hat, etc. They even charged kids money to paint on their poster which you cannot even take home, ridiculous.

GOOOOOOD STUFF !!! stuff for the kids, adults, tasteful. Beautiful park, Live acoustic music during the morning I went made it heavenly! Free parking, free admission. Lots to do and look at! I was in Dallas on business looking for local flare and found it! Huge! You dont have to spend lots of money to enjoy the setting and displays!!! Something for everyone. Wish my city had a planning committee like this art show does. If I am in the area, i would never miss it!

Pretty much like a ourdoors art museum since we can’t afford anything they are selling … We didn’t see many people buying things maybe some small wooden handcraft items, but not many are buying at this price there are sold signs on some art works tho’… It was a great walk with our 2 pups as they met many friends along the walk… and we even saw a full blood wolf !!! … and the cool thing is the center part of the park have a stage set up for artist to perform also they have alcohol there at the center part only… and food stands toward the back part of the park… there are sculptures along the center part… and many cool photographers displaying their work and wooden hand crafters and some hand made designer jewelry places, paintings and glass work… it’s a fun day out~
I’ve lived around for over 10+ years but this is the 1^st time we’ve visiting… we’ll definitely return again in 2013…
*hint* bring your own water or soft drink… the super expensive lemonade we bought tasted horrible!!! and bring cash for speedy food transactions.

Amazing art, but … bring your credit card. Canton, this is not. Mayfest, this is not. At Cottonwood, $ 500 for this tiny item and $ 5,000 over there for that. These are real artists, not starving artists. Stuff you might see in Highland Park homes, if not decking the halls at the Kimball. Didn’t see many people buying things, not at those price points. It was great looking at amazing artwork, and all kinds, too: Paintings, sculptures, glass, photography. It was more like walking through an outdoor art gallery or museum.

I have been going to the Cottonwood Festival for many years and have always enjoyed my experience.
The Cottonwood is held bi-​annually in May and October. What you will find is an assortment of artists with a varying span of talent. This means you will find sculptors, painters, jewelry makers and even some decorative items. The talent is always strong and I have never noticed a cheap or tacky vendor. This is what I know I can count on at the Cottonwood festival is quality.
The location is Cottonwood Park which is surrounded by a small pond. You have a certain area designed for booze, lots of food booths (one actual area designated for that plus some scattered about), live music and of course, the art. Kids have their own section where you can purchase tickets and they can make their own art which is pretty cool.
My mother’s favorite jewelry vendor is Marty and Zeke and if you are into silver, turquoise and coral jewelry you will love their craft. They are very popular. In past years I have purchased items from jewelry to bookmarks all the way up to a nude black and white framed photograph I have in my bathroom at my house to my favorite item which are decorative wooden bowls made from wood pieces in Alabama that are dipped in a bronze-​like coating and mounted on pedestals. This was a couple of artists from Alabama who I haven’t seen in recent years but they made really great stuff.
Another one of my favorite artists is Robert Hurst who is from Austin. A nationally known artist Robert has been appointed to do many works over the years of famous singers and sports figures. I have one of his limited edition autographed Emmitt Smith pieces he did a few years ago that I purchased at Cottonwood. You can pretty much count on Robert to be at the Cottonwood each year and his stuff will be very popular.
Entry is FREE and Cottonwood is dog friendly. If you are in the North Dallas area during the time of Cottonwood it pays to stop by and see for yourself.

It’s free and its fun, it is art of every kind, and a great area for kids to make art, dog friendly, you can bring in food. they live music, the park is lovely.. good parking, all free.
Good food vendors, not outrageously price, well $ 7 for a glass of Cross Timbers wine is pretty high, but the other wine is $ 4 and draft beer is $ 4. A corn dog will run you $ 4, $ 5 for a foot-​long and they are good.
The boy scouts sell water for $ 2. I got some from them just because.
The ONLY thing I can say that is of a negative nature is, that many of the artists just will NOT get off their cell phones, but the Pro to that is that I save hundreds of dollars in art that doesn’t get purchased. Go early, it gets very busy after noon. Bring a hat, lots of shade but the sun is strong. The ducks are probably happy when it is all done!