Couples walked hand in hand and children sat on their parents’ shoulders as gusts of wind blew past, lending a reprieve from the hot sun. While they strolled past the art festival booths, wind chimes rang and live music played.
Santa Fe College hosted its 52nd annual Spring Arts Festival April 13 and 14, which featured planetarium shows, a zoo booth and works from local artists.
The Spring Arts Festival began in 1970 and grew into an annual tradition where community members gather to celebrate artistic expression and emerging talent, said Kyle Novak, a co-organizer of the festival.
When SF’s Northwest campus opened in 1972, the festival began on campus grounds in 1973. It also featured a petting zoo, according to the college’s festival history.
Novak continues the zoo tradition. Many festival activities incorporate on-campus programs already available to students, he said.
“It's really cool to have the opportunity to highlight some of the unique things about Santa Fe's campus,” he said. “Not many schools have a planetarium and a zoo.”
Following 1973, attendance grew to around 90,000 by 1989. Popularity peaked in 2007, when the festival attracted about 130,000 visitors, becoming Gainesville’s largest annual cultural arts event.
Brynna Palmer, a co-organizer of the festival, said she hopes attendees realize a career in the arts is possible through participating in the festival.
“I hope that people come to our art festival and have a new insight on what an art festival is,” she said. “I hope that we show our student artists in a way that will be exciting for the public to see.”
Every year, SF selects an artist to create an annual festival poster, a tradition that began in 1981.
Molly Kempson, a 37-year-old Gainesville artist, was asked to create this year’s poster. Her design featured a male anhinga bird in breeding plumage and was inspired by the time she had spent kayaking on the Santa Fe River, she said.
“I love looking at the foliage and the trees and the way that they kind of fold over the river and have Spanish moss hanging, and so there's bits of those elements in the back,” she said. “I [was] trying to make them kind of subtle so that the anhinga pops forward, but if you spend time looking around, you'll see all of these elements of cypress roots and spider lilies.”
Sam Howard, a 19-year-old SF architecture student, and Ava Villamil, a 17-year-old SF dual-enrollment student, met through a shared art class and ran a booth together at the festival.
As they sipped on bright red and blue slushies, Howard and Villamil said it was their first time participating in a festival, and landing sales can be difficult as a vendor.
“It's not easy to sell art,” Howard said. “A lot of people come here to look at art and have good food. [And] I didn’t keep that in mind… a lot of people have come up and said they think it’s beautiful and stuff. I’m like, ‘Buy it. Take it home. I’ve got plenty of prints.’ But they don’t have space on their walls, or for whatever reason, they don’t take it home with them.”
Many of Howard and Villamil’s prints are of plants and flowers. Howard enjoys drawing images of nature because he said it’s his forte, while Villamil draws because her mom collects plants, and they’re an accessible reference, she said.
“I tend to find it hard to find inspiration sometimes because I'm like a perfectionist,” she said. “My mom loves plants … she’ll just bring me a plant and be like, ‘Do this,’” she said.
Among the 163 booths, artists varied in age. Jorden Mobley, an 11-year-old student at Glen Springs Elementary School, showcased his printmaking and drawings in a booth at the north end of the festival. He and his mom, Gerna Mobley, sat in lawn chairs, his artist name tag pinned to his shirt.
Jorden was inspired by the late Gainesville artist Ernest Lee, whom he met at an art show a year before his passing in 2021, Gerna Mobley said.
Ernest Lee gave Jorden some important words of advice, he said.
“He told me, ‘Keep going. Even if I mess up, keep going,’” he said.
Just a few booths down, Gloria Lee, Ernest Lee’s wife, sold prints of her husband's paintings. Apart from working at UF Health Shands Teaching Hospital, she hopes to continue to spread his legacy, even if she isn’t an artist, Lee said.
“I didn't know nothing about art, but I know so much now, because of how [Ernest] taught me that you have to respect each person for each style that they have,” she said. “Because what they’re bringing out is what's in their heart and their mind, and it comes out.”
Gloria saw friends and other artists and stopped to hug them before wishing them on their way.
Lee wanted to emphasize the importance of supporting other artists, she said.
“Always support any artists that are out there that are striving to do something new and different,” she said. “Don't judge. Just go and enjoy what they’ve done.”
Buyers should respect the price of the art, she added — artists put time into their pieces.
One artist in particular, Jeannie Papadopoulos, a 57-year-old Ocala artist, repurposed objects such as old utensils, buttons and mufflers into characterized 3-D mixed media. Each finished piece has hidden storage compartments and its own name.
Papadopoulos enjoys the neighborhood feel of a festival, she said.
“I learned to be a good neighbor,” she said. “Because you are around people that you've never met. But by the end of the weekend, they're gonna love me. I'm gonna love them.”
Papadopoulos has been a full-time artist for 27 years. Having attended many shows as an artist across the country, it’s always the connection that’s important, she said.
“I’ve traveled all over the country, and I could sit next to somebody I don't know from Adam, but by the end of the weekend, we're planning Christmas dinner,” she said.
Dacota Maphis, a 65-year-old Ocala digital media artist, defines her artistic approach as photo-revised art, where she reworks a photograph into an entirely different image. Pixels are her paint, she said.
Maphis said her creative process is like a puzzle that needs solving. She hoped others would positively connect with her art.
“When somebody connects to a piece of my art, then they have connected to it because it inspires them,” she said. “It makes them think of something positive, and they just get something out of it. And I can only spot it when it happens. And that's a lot of joy. That is worth it.”
Contact Sara-James Ranta at sranta@alligator.org and Annie Wang at awang@alligator.org. Follow them on X @sarajamesranta and @wynwg.
Annie Wang is a first-year journalism major and a University General Assignment writer for The Alligator. In her free time, she enjoys reading and writing reviews on Goodreads.
