Winner of our 2012 Poster Competition is…

Posted on May 3, 2012 by corvallisfallfestival

“Bountiful!”
Congratulations to Carrie Tasman for winning our poster contest with the most votes. Carrie is a local artist with many years of art fair experience under her belt. She also created our 2004 poster featuring her long-time companion Chamois, a yellow lab. She heard from many of her cat loving fans that next time she does a poster for us it better include a kitty. We’re guessing all those devoted cat lovers helped push “Bountiful” to the top.

The last time we did a competition for our poster we only received a hand full of entries. This year we received 60. The depth and breadth of works was exciting for us to jury. Almost 1000 of you voted for your favorite artwork image and many people took the time to look at all of the entries submitted on our gallery page. Thanks. Sometimes it’s hard for us to give up control of certain things, but this year’s contest proved that allowing the public to help us could be fun.

As soon as we receive the full database of emails from the contest we’ll choose a couple of winners for a sweatshirt or t-shirt that can be picked up at the festival.

Thanks to all our artists for creating and submitting artwork, and to everyone for helping us chose our 40th Anniversary Poster Winner.

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Behind the Scenes of our Poster Contest

Posted on April 16, 2012 by corvallisfallfestival

Thanks to all who entered our 40th Anniversary Corvallis Fall Festival Poster Contest. We received some stunning artwork from 40 artists–60 images in total. It’s too bad we can’t print 60 different versions of our poster. Alas, some decisions had to be made.

The selection team viewed all of the artwork without titles or names of artists. Then they also viewed everything in a greyscale version to see how they looked in black and white — the way many of our ads will appear in print publications around the state — and then all work was scored. The six finalists chosen rose above the others in votes primarily due to the use of colors and strong imagery that spoke for itself.

Many of the images received were stunning and everyone had a favorite or two that fell out due to one thing or the other. Art is just subjective that way.

We know that some of you will agree with our choices for finalists and others will scratch your heads and think we’re nuts. To give you that opportunity, you can see all of the images submitted to us at the gallery page at our website.

Be sure and vote for your favorite from our finalists via our online voting page. When you vote you are also entered into a drawing for a free t-shirt or sweatshirt of the winning image that we will reserve for you at the festival. (Apologies to those of you who detest the extra steps of sign-ups. The contest was set up this way to discourage unfair voting.)

Our thanks to all of the artists who participated and thanks to everyone for your support of our 40th Anniversary Corvallis Fall Festival.

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Returning Artists: 57

Posted on March 22, 2012 by corvallisfallfestival

Customer at a pottery booth

Insomnia Potter at Corvallis Fall Festival Art Fair

We know you like to discover new artists at the art fair when you come to Central Park each September, but we also know you’d be disappointed to not see a few of your favorites, too. So, we invite back some of our top artists, as well as local Guild art booth and artist cooperatives, who represent hundreds of local artists, AND our Bonnie Hall Best in Show Winner, last year Micki Voorhies.

The deadline for our veterans to let us know whether or not they’ll be back has just past. This year 57 have answered the call to return. We’ve lost a couple artists to shows in California our same weekend. At least one couple is coming a bit tentatively because they also have a due date in late September. Another artist has an opportunity to go to Bhutan and will jump at that chance. It is our open application period until May 1 when we jury for the remaining 113 spots. Many of the applications that are rolling in right now are from artists we’ve not seen before, so we’ll be sure and have a good mix for you come September 22 & 23.

From now through September we’ll be posting images and info about artists coming to Corvallis here and on the Corvallis Fall Festival Flickr site.

See you there.

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And the Oscar Goes To…

Posted on March 6, 2012 by corvallisfallfestival
Ovation Award from OFEA

Ovation Award for Best Festival Goes to Corvallis Fall Festival

Our industry’s version of the Oscars was held today at the Oregon Festival and Event Association’s annual convention. We are happy and pleased-as-punch proud to announce that Corvallis Fall Festival won an Ovation Award for Best Festival for 2011 (budget under $150,000.) We were in GREAT company, sharing top honors with one of the biggest events in the region, the Oregon Jamboree (Best Festival Over $150,000) and the World Beat Festival (Best Music or Arts Festival).

Thirty-nine years young seems to be one of those significant birthdays of contemplation before turning 40. As we looked back at all we accomplished last year –as well as the previous 38 –we really wanted to celebrate. Our nomination to the OFEA gave a shout out to our great sponsors, many artists and musicians and super volunteers who have all helped sustain our event through this economy and over many years. Just guessing, but our new sustainability efforts last year most likely helped make us a winner for our leadership in the industry.

Thanks to everyone for helping us achieve such a swell honor. You know we couldn’t do it without you!

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POSTER Contest!!

Posted on February 1, 2012 by corvallisfallfestival

"The Ride Home"

Jennifer Lommers 2011 Poster Artwork

We get asked all the time, “How do you pick your poster artwork?” “How can I submit an image?”

Because the artwork is used in all of our publicity we need a strong graphic image. It needs to have good contrast, look super in B/W — newspaper print ads — and be able to stand up to a lot of text. So, in years past we’ve not left it up to chance. We’ve selected an artist who does strong work, given him/her some parameters and they’ve given us images that worked well in all of our publicity.

For our 40th Annual this year we decided to change things and roll the dice.
We invite all 2-D visual artists to submit artwork to be considered for this year’s Festival Poster.

A selection committee will chose poster finalists, and from those finalists, the winning piece will be chosen by the public via online voting. We don’t know exactly how this second part will work just yet, but we’ll have it figured out by April.

If your artwork is selected you’ll receive a $500 honorarium for use of the image through this year, and we’ll show it — along with the other finalists — at the Fine Arts Showcase in The Arts Center all September.

There is NO Entry Fee for this Competition!
DEADLINE to Enter: March 30, 2012

Download the application information. If you have questions, please Contact Us.

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Doing Our Part

Posted on November 28, 2011 by corvallisfallfestival
Compostable serving items

Service ware that was compostable at the festival

As many of your know, our mission is to host a festival that will help local arts and crafts thrive while we serve, support and showcase Corvallis. Staying true to that mission is part of our ongoing examination of the festival and how we can do better.

For the past few years daVinci Days Festival has led the way in green, sustainable actions at their event. Their mission as an arts, science and TECHNOLOGY event made these efforts a given. As our Board examined how being more green fit into our mission as primarily an arts event, the sustainability of the festival along with the “feel good” of Doing the Right Thing was discussed. So we took the first steps and changed to an Eco-Smart Food Court where all serving containers were either compostable or recyclable. (Much thanks and kudos to daVinci Days for having paved the way with systems we could follow.)

The overwhelming positive response we received from our attendees and volunteers for composting at the festival helped us know we made the right decision, even tho it meant additional planning and volunteers — 87 from Love, Inc., 12 OSU Recycling and the entire Boy Scout Troop #163 to be exact. We’re happy to report that “feeling good” wasn’t the only affirmative results. We were able to decrease the amount of waste to the landfill from a giant 30-yard unit to fewer than 6 yards in small bins.

Post festival it’s apparent our Eco-Smart Food Court was truly part of our festival mission as it showcased the unique community we live in — one where a local business will innovate compostable products and the local arts festivals integrate them into their events to reduce waste. Most events recycle as much as they can as well as clean up the trash, but our event actually reduced waste.

Thanks to this year’s efforts the festival has received Silver Tier Partner status with Travel Oregon’s Oregon Forever sustainable tourism businesses program. We were the first in Corvallis to achieve this status and hope it brings even more kudos to our fair city. We’ve also joined the Energize Corvallis Team to promote small changes that could add up to big energy savings in our Community. We encourage you to take the Communities Take Charge Challenge and then join us again next year knowing that we’re all doing more to use less.

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Buying Local this Season

Posted on November 21, 2011 by corvallisfallfestival

Work of Louie Gizyn at TEAL

TEAL artist Louie Gizyn

This time of year as we begin to consider special, meaningful gifts for people, we invite you to remember all the local artists and craftspeople who have dedicated their careers to being creative. While few choose art as a way to become fabulously wealthy, everyone does hope to prosper and be successful. We can all help by buying local when we can.

Slightly out of the ordinary, The Arts Center presents their third annual theme-based show, this year the Portals Show. Artists have created special works that will be auctioned and then sold to the highest bidders.

TEAL Artists Cooperative comes around just once a year (and in a booth at the festival), and features some fine work.

Many of our Fall Festival artists are also a part of the ongoing Indoor Eugene Saturday Market Holiday Marketplace. If you’re heading down to Lane County, stop by their Fairgrounds for a wonderful sensory experience.

FOOD and FUN: Terre Madre at the Mary’s River Grange hosted by the Slow Food Corvallis group. Red Onion Woodworks will be there with her beautiful cutting boards.

Oh, we almost forgot: Dec 2 & 3, the OSU Holiday Marketplace in the MU Ballroom. Lovely work, music and goodies.

Artists, if you are having a studio sale, use our Contact Us form and let us share the info!

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What is in MISC?

Posted on November 15, 2011 by corvallisfallfestival

"Sniff"

Spehar Soap Booth-Photo by Scobel Wiggins

In answer to an inquiry from the Confidential Artist Survey being conducted with this year’s Fall Festival artists, Yes, SOAP is in the Miscellaneous Category of our festival. Artisan crafted soaps are typically a big seller at the festival and often sell well enough that the artists get the much coveted auto invite back to the show. That’s a lot of soap sales!

Also in Misc this year: thumb instruments, leaf silouettes, soft animal sculptures, baskets, spices, wire sculpture, woven hammocks, painted gourds, copper accessories, bonsai plants, wire sculpture, music, puppets, clocks, hats, tiles, and more… It’s often the biggest category and one that includes the wide range of creative skills artists are drawn to explore.

Artists, we’re receiving good feedback from you. Next year look for the artist packets online with a private link for you to view (as well as still receiving a copy in the mail if you wish one) and a few more instructions for load-in/load-out. Now if only we could guarantee sunny weather and the Beavs playing that game with the funny ball later in the day on Saturday… Thanks for taking the time to do the survey!

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Blog Wrap Up

Posted on October 31, 2011 by corvallisfallfestival

Prisha Brown Studio

Studio shot from Prisha Brown's Blog

A few post-festival blog posts reminded us to check the blog-o-sphere to see what people said about us behind our backs. Below are some links to a few we found. Entwine Jewelry’s Prisha Brown kept a “Road to Fall Festival” blog for over a month prior to the festival. Some of the other links also talk about the process for getting prepared and some are wrap-up comments. Thanks everyone for the nice mentions sharing our fun weekend in Corvallis.
“Road to Fall Festival”
Kristi Lombard – New artists 2011
An Arts Blog that found us…
Kathy Borrego – New Artists 2011
Pam Van Londen’s wrap-up
Jennifer Lommers “The Ride Home”

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Goedemorgen Fall Festivalites

Posted on October 27, 2011 by corvallisfallfestival

Oude Kerk Amsterdam

Fall Festival in Amsterdam

As in Corvallis, Orange is a fairly significant color in the Netherlands. It’s their national color as well as what the home team wears. So this year’s “Fall Festival abroad” shirt needed to be this one for a photo in Amsterdam. Behind the big orange coat was Mark Allison’s “It Was a Sunny Day” image from a couple years ago. Faithful festival hubby, Patrick Hadlock, is wearing it in front of the famed De Oude Kerk–the Old Church–in Amsterdam’s oldest district.

The church inside is being renovated for the umpteenth time for art and music programs. Quite a task as it also requires the careful removal and return of many remains buried there — the most famous being Saskia van Uylenburgh who was Rembrandt’s wife and the mother of his children. A practicing organist added a divine pipe music accompaniment to our tour.

If you are traveling out of state or the country, please send us photos of our Fall Festival T-shirts abroad for us to post. The more folks who know about our super art celebration in Corvallis, Oregon the better!

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