Get ”art”side and enjoy yourself!

Do you enjoy perusing paintings and photos? Seeing ceramics and sculptures? Browsing booth after booth of beautiful, creative creations? If ambling about an art-filled festival is right up your alley, then this event is picture perfect for you.

By Peg Cameron Gill If you have an affinity for art — or even if you don’t — you’ll enjoy yourself on Saturday, Sept. 9 at the Kennett Fall into Arts Festival, brought to you by The Kennett Alliance for the Arts (KAFTA). Of course you’ll find amazing art of all kinds at the festival, but that’s not all. There will be fabulous food including fried fish plates, sushi, Mexican dishes, ribs, Cajun crab legs and shrimp, funnel cakes, bundt cakes, and other sweet treats served up by a wide variety of vendors.  The festival is free to attend. An annual all-day event, it takes place in the Kennett Town Square from 9 AM-5 PM and is always a guaranteed good time for everyone.

Families will find plenty to do, with different kids’ arts and crafts projects and more. There are games like ring toss, face painting, chalk the sidewalk, art contests, balloon animals, a magic show, and spin art. There’ll be a great lineup of entertainment, too, including dancers, and musicians playing blues, Dixieland, country, and more. There will even be high school bands.

So get “art” side” and enjoy yourself in Kennett, at The Fall into Arts Festival!​ About KAFTA:  The Kennett Alliance for the Arts is a non-profit organization composed of the CottonBoll Artist League, Friends of Music Society, and SEMO Little Theater Group. Financial assistance for the project has been provided by the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency. All funds received will be used to promote the arts.  KAFTA evolved from a casual remark made by one of Kennett’s art supporters to Inga Eubanks (owner of Inga’s Gallery and Custom Framing since 1982 in Kennett, Missouri and Piggott, Arkansas) which made it clear to her that having several art organizations may be a wonderful situation, but that it might be better to form an inclusive organization.  Just as the “United Way” organization would represent a wider audience and could therefore obtain more support than several small groups could on their own, a larger arts organization could represent the many facets of art. Representatives of the Friends of Music Society and the SEMO Little Theater Group embraced this idea enthusiastically.  Everyone agreed that pooling resources and presenting an event to which all art organizations would contribute their own speciality could result in a festival which would appeal to a large variety of people.  All agreed that such an event may introduce people only interested in the visual arts to the many forms of the performing arts, performers to a variety of visual arts, music lovers to either or all, and the general public to the fact that art is a part of everyone’s life. Want to read about a Missouri master potter? Click here. For hundreds more events, visit Missouri Life’s Event Calendar.