The Wheeling Arts and Culture Commission in partnership with the Wheeling YWCA are excited to announce the 2017 Arts and Cultural Festival. Mark your calendars for Friday, June 16th and Saturday, June 17th from 11:00 am – 8:00 pm. Here are just a few reasons to come down to Heritage Port for two full days of live entertainment.
It’s Free. The festival itself has completely free admission. There will be vendors present with food and craft beer sales, but all of the entertainment provided at the festival is free, including participation in the activities.
Something for the entire family. We have something for everyone including kid’s activities such as face painting, a mini comic book workshop, bike part jewelry, polymer clay pins, spin art, pulled string arts, print making,. We also have adult activities such as fabric beads, SUMI-E and mixed media journals. The festival also hosts poetry readings, culinary demonstrations and public participation art. Our Around the World Carnival offers art and musical instruments from around the world, a fun learning experience for kids and adult alike. Stop by and have your name translated and look up your family crest.
Support local artists. Coming out to the Wheeling Arts and Culture Fest is a great way to support, celebrate and learn about local artists and what they do. This year we offer our biggest artist market with many vendors showcasing their art for viewing and purchasing. Other special programming includes Michael Albert, a New York pop artist who will be demonstrating at the Children’s Museum of the Ohio Valley Booth and Michael Roy’s Cirque du Papier, origami for the new millennium.
Our music lineup features Steeltown Horns with international touring artist Reggie Watkins, as well as regional and local stars including Ezra John, Joshua Lee, Mahajibee Blues, Soup Camel, Bill Gorby and The Musical Mercenaries, Mr. Fancy Pants, Chelsey Keding and Steel Casa.
The festival will also feature a kindness rocks project which is a grass roots movement to promote random acts of kindness and inspiration to unsuspecting recipients. And we will host a YWCA WIND Program – “Art with Heart.” In partnership with Mission West Virginia and the YWCA WIND Program women, inmate artists throughout West Virginia are creating and donating art to fund raise scholarship opportunities for youth who experience foster care or have a parent incarcerated for a year or more of their childhood. The art being sold is an opportunity for inmates to give back to the community in a way that benefits children and provides hope for an end to the poverty cycle.
The Arts Commission and the YWCA would also like to thank our sponsors. Premier sponsors include Wesbanco and The Schenk Foundation. Supporting Sponsors include Jackson Hewitt, the Wheeling Ohio County CVB, Wheeling Heritage, United Electric and the Ohio County Commission. Patron Sponsors include Oglebay Institute, the WALS Foundation, Century Equity, Wheeling Symphony, Comcast, Staley Communications, the City of Wheeling Human Rights Commission, Wheeling Kiwanis, Wheeling Rotary, Ziegenfelders and Lamar. There are also several friends of the festival we would like to acknowledge including the Children’s Museum, Ohio County Public Library, RCK Group LLC, WKKX, PJ’s Pizza, and River City.
For more information about the Wheeling Arts and Culture Fest visit our website at http://wheelingartsfest.com/ or check us out on Facebook.