Art on the Green gives ‘an opportunity to actually experience art’ for 57th year

The early years of Art on the Green were a true testament to just how much the volunteers, artists and art buyers wanted the event to happen.

To start, volunteers built each artist booth out of plywood themselves, no small task though, yes, there were fewer art booths those first two years.

The real challenge of endurance came courtesy of the fest’s location: the Rotary tennis courts at McEuen Park.

Unshaded tennis courts, mind you.

“It was blazing hot because you were on pavement,” Diane Solomon, who has volunteered with the festival for 45 years, said. “It was hot enough the first year that the story I heard was that they had oil paintings that literally melted.”

Luckily for artists, art patrons, volunteers and those oil paintings, the event was soon moved to the shady campus of North Idaho College, where it’s been ever since.

The 57th annual Art on the Green, which is organized by the Citizens’ Council for the Arts, once again takes over the campus from Friday through Sunday.

Though much has changed about the festival since those tennis court days, the main goal of the festival, to support artists of a variety of mediums, has remained the same.

This year’s fest will see around 120 artists from near (Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Montana), far (California, Utah, Arizona) and farther still (Texas, Louisiana) sharing their work in cloth and fiber, glass, jewelry, leather, metal, mixed media, painting, photography, pottery and wood.

Fourteen of the 120 artists booths are youth artists, which Solomon said is higher than average. For these young artists, she said, Art on the Green is often a first taste of entrepreneurship and receiving feedback from buyers.

A team of three people are responsible for reviewing artists submissions each year. They try to find a balance between the various mediums while also looking at the quality of each artist’s work and the range of prices they have on their pieces.

“We want to make it so anybody in the community that comes down there could hopefully afford to buy something,” Solomon said. “We try to include as many local people as possible because that’s the whole point of this is to support artists and art in the community.”

For young artists, the Children’s Art Garden offers origami, painted rocks, gourd design, wooden pendants, screen printing and more.

Two booth artists will also hold classes during the three-day festival. Jeff Harris will teach the art of raku pottery at his booth, No. 27, Friday and Saturday at 1 p.m. ($25, sign up at artonthegreencda.com).

At 1 p.m. Friday and Sunday, Stephen Bruce will teach “Science and Art of Copper Patina” at his booth, No. 58 (free, ages 8 and older, sign up at artonthegreencda.com).

“It used to be that the artists, a lot of them would be working in their booth as people were walking around, and it got to the point where it was busy enough it was very hard for them to do that,” Solomon said. “We thought it would be a great idea for people to have an opportunity to actually experience art and a class and learn a little bit about it.”

Along with the booth artists, Art on the Green also features a juried art show. Once each piece is hung at the festival, three judges divvy up $3,500 in prize money.

One piece from the juried show is donated to an Idaho elementary school (John Brown Elementary in Rathdrum is this year’s recipient), and one piece goes to North Idaho College.

There is also the Clothesline Booth, where artists can submit up to 50 small, original paintings or two-dimensional works priced from $1 to $100.

“There’s a couple of well known artists in this area who maybe don’t want to mess with doing a booth, so they’ll bring 10 or 15 or 20 pieces down to the Clothesline sale,” Solomon said. “Or if they want to try something different, if they want to move to a different medium, then that’s a great place for them to see what the response is.”

Art on the Green also features a variety of musical and theatrical entertainment across two stages all three days of the festival.

There is also plenty of food and drink on hand. Festival volunteers will be serving ice cream, corn on the cob, German sausages and hot dogs, pre-made salads and cold drinks at food booths.

There will also be a variety of food trucks on site, including Blackfire KettleCorn, the Wellness Bar, Island Noodle, Birdie’s Pies, a barbecue truck and Farnzy’s Snowballs and Stuff.

Finally, there will be a beer and wine garden which features drinks from local breweries and wineries.

To be celebrating a 57th year is no small feat for an art festival, and Solomon credits Art on the Green’s longevity to, of course, the artists and patrons, but also the volunteers who work long days leading up to the event to make sure everything is ready to go.

After all, without those early volunteers braving tennis court temperatures to develop and grow a festival that spotlights artists of all mediums and makes that art accessible to the community, we wouldn’t have it made in the shade decades later.