Arts & The Park: Celebrate Imagination, the Hot Spring’s Area Cultural Alliance’s unique and vibrant 10-day arts festival, will begin on Friday, April 26, and run through Sunday, May 5, 2024. The festival, held at various locations around Hot Springs, offers a blend of in-person and virtual activities. The 2024 Celebrate Imagination theme aims to showcase the universal experience of creativity and the profound role of imagination in enriching the creative process and other aspects of life. Arts & The Park: Celebrate Imagination is proudly presented by Oaklawn.
The festival commences on Friday, April 26, with diverse activities, including the opening of Art Moves at the Hot Springs Creek Greenway Trail. Art Moves features 20 works of art from Arkansas artists reproduced onto 30” 40” metal sheets displayed along the trail. The following day, downtown’s Hill Wheatley Plaza and the Entertainment District come alive with the Art Springs 2-day open-air festival, offering something for everyone. In addition to Art Springs, the Hot Springs Children’s Dance Theatre Co. will host a free professional ballet performance at the Arlington Hotel Lobby on Sunday.
Art Springs’ visitors will have plenty to enjoy during the 2-day event, which runs from 10 AM- 6 PM on Saturday, April 27, and 10 AM – 4 PM on Sunday, April 28. The Hill Wheatley Plaza portion of the event features the Art Springs Stage and welcomes a full lineup headlined on Saturday Night by the Glover Awards for Songwriting. Hill Wheatley Plaza will also house close to 40 juried artist booths, food trucks, including the award-winning Chrissy’s Pub Style, and a silent auction of the 2023 Art Moves works that had been displayed along the Hot Springs Creek Greenway trail. The Hot Springs Fiber company is hosting a “yarn bomb” from artists across the globe who are donating fiber art to wrap the trees of Hill Wheatley Plaza. The yarn bomb will only be available at Hill Wheatley Plaza during Art Springs.
The stage lineup for Saturday and Sunday includes the Lakeside Jazz Band, David Higginbotham, Arkansas Highlands String band, Kai Coggin and Wednesday Night Poetry artists, Stone Crows, Big Papa Binns, and the headlining event Saturday night, the Glover Awards for songwriting. The stage will feature Rico Donovan, Christine DeMeo, Lanie Carlson’s Strarstuff Studio, I Can Dance of Garland County, Jacob Flores, and Miranda Brewer.
The adjacent Entertainment District side of Art Springs houses Art Interactive, an area that allows visitors to participate in creative endeavors. There will be arts and crafts, which change hourly and are presented by Emergent Arts and the Garland County Library, free children’s books, Lanie Carlson with the interactive Starstuff Studio, Big Poppa Bubble, and the Hot Springs Renaissance Faire, which has tons of interactive fun, including an open stage for visitors who like to perform spontaneously.
On Sunday, April 28, in the middle of Spring Street, right between the Entertainment District and Hill Wheatley Plaza, people are invited to watch block printing done with the pressure of a steamroller at the 2nd annual Under Pressure block printing event sponsored by AITOH Specialty Paper and Emergent Arts.
The monotony of the workweek can be broken up with several exciting events at the Garland County Library, including The Lovely Fruit Fairy Tea Party, Three Springs featuring Charlie Mink, Local Author’s Day, All Things Fiber – with more “yarn bombing” at the library, and an expanded encore presentation of The Architect’s Daughter with additional information and images presented by Diana McDaniel Hampo.
Monday, April 29, provides a fantastic opportunity to see a performance by the IBLA International Musician contest winners, who will go on to play at Carnegie Hall after departing from Arkansas. Tuesday, April 30, is Virtual Cooking with Oaklawn’s Executive Chef Ken Bredeson, offering people the opportunity to cook along with the chef via Zoom and engage and ask questions as they go. The ingredients and tools list is emailed to people signing up at HotSpringsArts.org, and Weldon’s Meat Market is special-ordering the Trout exclusively for Virtual Cooking participants. Wednesday welcomes Wednesday Night Poetry at Kollective Coffee+Tea. Thursday offers a sneak peek of the works for the upcoming Rix Gallery with a happy hour preview.
The festival closes with another event-filled weekend starting Friday, May 3, with Gallery Walk featuring the original works of art reproduced for the 2024 Art Moves exhibition. Saturday and Sunday, May 4-5, from 10 AM to 4 PM, local artists will open their private spaces for the wildly popular Artist Studio Tours. Closing out the festival on Sunday, May 5, at 3 PM, is unveiling the first installation of the Arkansas Music Trail of Hot Springs, located at the Arlington Hotel.
The Hot Springs Area Culture Alliance is a non-profit organization whose mission is to celebrate, advocate, and promote the arts in Hot Springs, Arkansas. For more information, please visit www.hotspringsarts.org or email hsaca@hotspringsarts.org.
