The Great Gulfcoast Arts Festival is an annual three-day,
juried art show in historic Seville Square in downtown
Pensacola, Florida
Pensacola () is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle, and the county seat and only incorporated city of Escambia County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 54,312. Pensacola is the principal ...
. Established in 1973, this Festival is held the first full weekend in November. Annually, it draws over 200 painters, potters, sculptors, jewelers, graphic artists, craftsmen, mixed-media artists and others competing for $25,000 in cash awards.
Great Gulfcoast Arts Festival
official site.
There was no festival in 2004 nor 2020.
Generally
The Festival features a Heritage Arts area, where craftspeople from around the country provide demonstrations of crafts from the past, including blacksmith
A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from #Other metals, other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such ...
ing, engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ...
, spinning, weaving
Weaving is a method of textile production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. Other methods are knitting, crocheting, felting, and braiding or plaiting. The longitudinal th ...
and other time-honored traditions.
Live musicians are featured on two stages. The Pensacola Symphony and Pensacola Opera performances most years. Other performances range from bluegrass, Cajun
The Cajuns (; French: ''les Cadjins'' or ''les Cadiens'' ), also known as Louisiana ''Acadians'' (French: ''les Acadiens''), are a Louisiana French ethnicity mainly found in the U.S. state of Louisiana.
While Cajuns are usually described as ...
and blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
to instrumental guitar. The performing arts stage showcases theater, folk and ballet dance.
The Children's Arts Festival features numerous hands-on artistic opportunities for children at no cost to parents. Projects include face painting, clay play, a flower shop, button creations, sand art, sidewalk art, and a magical balloon show. There is glitter, glue, sequins and more for children to create their own mini-masterpieces such as masks, crowns, magic wands, and jewelry.
Bartram Park is also home to the annual Student Art Show
An art exhibition is traditionally the space in which art objects (in the most general sense) meet an audience. The exhibit is universally understood to be for some temporary period unless, as is rarely true, it is stated to be a "permanent exhib ...
, showcasing the talents of private and public school students in Escambia and Santa Rosa
Santa Rosa is the Italian, Portuguese and Spanish name for Saint Rose.
Santa Rosa may also refer to:
Places Argentina
*Santa Rosa, Mendoza, a city
* Santa Rosa, Tinogasta, Catamarca
* Santa Rosa, Valle Viejo, Catamarca
*Santa Rosa, La Pampa
* Sa ...
Counties. Over 2,000 pieces of art from elementary, middle and high school students is displayed.
Food and beverages are available from a variety of vendors, including area restaurants.
Admission to the festival is free.
Entries
Show entries are by juried selection, with artists' applications generally due in early May. Show entries compete for prizes at various levels, with a 2010 Best of Show award set at $3000. The yearly design competitions for selecting the official GGAF poster are also juried, generally in June, with a cash award of $1,000 in 2010.
See also
*Art exhibition
An art exhibition is traditionally the space in which art objects (in the most general sense) meet an audience. The exhibit is universally understood to be for some temporary period unless, as is rarely true, it is stated to be a "permanent exhib ...
*Festival
A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival c ...
s
References
External links
*
Art exhibitions in the United States
Festivals in Florida
Culture of Pensacola, Florida
Tourist attractions in Pensacola, Florida
Festivals established in 1973
1973 establishments in Florida
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