Momentum building for art festival

“We’ve got 48 artists represented,” she said last Friday. “Not individual booths, but between the galleries and everything.”

Also as of last Friday, “at least 30” artists were scheduled to be at the show in person.

“We’ve got several from North Carolina and South Carolina, and one from Florida,” McKay noted — in addition to a host of artists from this area.

Some of those artists will conduct classes, do demonstrations or make presentations. A schedule of those classes available for $6-10 can be found at Folk-finearts.com, a website created to promote the event.

“We have a lot of partners helping us,” McKay said. “We couldn’t do it without their help.” She noted that the Commerce Civic Center is a partner, that Huber Engineered Woods donated the lumber to make booth walls for the hanging of art. Howard and Knox Smith, Mark McCannon and Dennis Kesler are building the walls.

Chamber president Shane Short cut the TV commercial for the event being aired in the Greenville-Spartanburg, Savannah, Charlotte and Atlanta cable TV markets, CMC Consulting provided the Web development and Hill Medical Group is hosting a reception Friday night.

The group has been running print ads in specialty publications, mailed out 120 invitations to the reception to people in the area and has sent out more than 1,000 postcards. MainStreet Newspapers, one of the sponsors, has provided advertising in its six area publications.

“We are really anticipating a good show,” said McKay. “I hope we have a good turnout. We’ve had a lot of support, but it takes a lot of volunteers to pull the weekend together. It takes 24 each day to run the show.”

McKay and Claudine Smith developed the idea after spending three days at Folk Fest in Atlanta. They were encouraged by artists who pointed out that there were no competing events the weekend of March 2-4 and that Commerce provides a good location.

“It is such an ideal location,” McKay agreed. “We’re close to the Carolinas, Atlanta and Athens.”

Hours will be as follows:

Friday, March 2: 5-10 p.m.

Saturday, March 3: 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Sunday, March 4: 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

The Friday admission cost of $15 includes readmission Saturday and Sunday, plus a reception Friday evening. Children under 10 will be admitted for free.

For more information, visit Folk-finearts.com or call McKay at 706-336-2954.