The last few hot, sleepy weeks of July have always been a prime opportunity for final townie hoorahs ahead of the bustling fall semester. This year FoxSaid Fest has popped up, a family-friendly music and art festival held Saturday, July 27 from 9 a.m.–10 p.m. at the Athens Cotton Press.
FoxSaid Fest will feature food trucks, a beer garden, an artist market, a community art board, plenty of activities for children, special artist spotlights and about 20 folk-inspired musical acts on three stages. Tickets are $10 in advance or $15 at the door, with free admission for children 10 and under. A portion of proceeds from ticket sales will benefit the Clarke County School District art program, and art supply collection box donations are welcome. Organizers hope that attendees will aid in their efforts to help supplement the very limited budgets of art teachers.
“Daniel Epting [of Epting Events] had this crazy art-forward festival idea just three months ago. He grabbed a creative crew of capable folks to throw together FoxSaid in a crazy short amount of time. We think we’ve succeeded in planning something incredibly special for Athens and the surrounding areas,” says Jan Greer, member of the FoxSaid Fest planning committee.
Inside the Cotton Press there will be an artist gallery with pieces from featured artists, including Didi Dunphy’s pink swing installation, an exclusive sculpture by Noah Saunders never seen before, a python by mosaic artist Krysia Ara, a kinetic art sculpture of an owl by Steve Sweetser and more. Perusing the artwork inside will be a great way to beat the heat, but festival organizers have made a significant effort to keep everyone comfortable outside as well. The outdoor artist market and acoustic stage will be shaded under a huge tent with fans and misters.
Trailblazer Tex Crawford, who designed the festival’s logo (see p. X for more info), will have small foxes on hand that the community can paint and take home as a souvenir. Peter Loose will be creating a new art car onsite for onlookers to observe. Ara, whose Project Ginkgo public art already includes 20 mosaics around downtown Athens, will have new ceramic Ginkgo leaves that attendees can help glaze. Sweetser will be bringing his “Howlin Art” van covered in chalkboard paint ready for kids to cover in their favorite woodland creatures. Stan Mullins will have two of the 12 panels he created for the 1996 Olympics on display, as well as a small bronze sculpture called “Perfume.”
“I was a part of the Athens Downtown Development Art Decko project this year, and I was able to carve off one of the panels and specify it as a community mural project. The painting of the mural will be a community collective project held the day of FoxSaid Fest and facilitated by Will Eskridge. The mural will be outside of the ticketed area, so free and open to the public at large,” says Greer.
In addition to the abundance of art-centric activities, there’s a full slate of music scheduled from morning to night. Originally the idea was to create a folk festival, but since Athens already has a long-running folk festival, there was an opportunity to create a more diverse and unique lineup, explains Troy Aubrey, partner of FoxSaid Fest under Aubrey Entertainment. His goal was to look “outside of the normal festival box” for music and acts that were interesting and paired well with the family component of the event.
“It’s folk-inspired for sure, but we felt strongly that we should delve into other types of music than just folk. We looked to incorporate jazz, blues, folk, Americana, bluegrass, alt-country, classical, singer-songwriters, etc. We worked hard to try to distinguish the festival as something different from other long-running festivals that were mainly genre-driven or heavy on indie rock/college rock,” says Aubrey.
The Main Stage and kids’ Woodlands Stage will be air-conditioned indoors, and the Jittery Joe’s Acoustic Tent will be outdoors. The Woodlands Stage will feature a variety of kid-friendly entertainment, including magic, stories, puppets and more. To close out the festival, The Pink Stones will headline indoors at 8:45 p.m. See the box for the full schedule of performances.
For more info or to purchase tickets, visit foxsaidfest.com.
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