Festival News Keeps You In Touch With The Arts
Festival News Keeps You In Touch With The Arts
The lowell folk festival is a unique annual event, bringing together thousands of artisans, crafters, students and others who come together to celebrate the creative nature of handmade goods. This year, I want to share with you some of the festival news that we’ve been reading and hearing through the grapevine. This past week has been particularly volatile in the arts community, as three different artistic individuals were brutally murdered. Their bodies were found hanging from a bridge over the Animas River, just two days after a protest against proposed tolls for Mexico’s new $2.5 billion highway was vandalized and damaged beyond repair. As the public clamored for answers, the local state police stepped in and detained a local sheriff who happened to be at the event the week prior.
No one can know for sure what prompted these senseless acts of violence, but the lowell folk festival has been in trouble before. In 2021, after two women were found dead, the entire festival was shut down for several days while the investigation was conducted. While the lack of clear criminal activity makes this tragic event less tragic, it does point to the lack of security for producing artists and crafters that make the festival such a delight. The fact that the festival returned to the scene of the crime almost immediately thereafter only serves to highlight how much risk creative people take when they hand over their hard work to others. The lack of security for the events and locations of the lowell folk festival is a growing concern for arts groups all around the world.
The lowell arts festival in Mexico has been plagued by violence in recent years, but this year the scene appears to be calmer than usual. A statement was issued by the festival on its website, confirming that the victims were “attacked by unknown persons” on Wednesday evening. The statement did not specify how the attackers had gained access to the property, or if they had been injured during the altercation. I have been working hard throughout the past week to try to understand how this incident happened, and have had some good success in tracking down who might have been responsible.
My personal experience with the arts festival confirms the threats that artistic creators and crafters regularly face online. I have attended plenty of lowell arts festivals around the world in places like Mexico and Japan, where I have been the target of vicious cyber-extortion attempts. As an artist, I know first hand how hard it is to create a virtual celebration of your work, knowing that anyone with the slightest idea of what you are doing can obtain copies of your work for nothing but your personal information. This dark affair highlights the danger that exists for artistic entrepreneurs who don’t spend enough time protecting themselves online. I had hoped that the festival would make an effort to protect its artists against this type of harassment, but at the time I didn’t see any sense in doing so.
One of the things that I have learned is that the best way to encourage people to talk about art is to give them the opportunity to do so without being required to talk about money or business. By allowing the festival director and other organizers of events like the New York Art Museum and other venues to set the terms for participation in the event, you give them an ideal opportunity to discuss issues in community spaces and engage participants in conversation about art. When you leave the press, magazine, or Internet with a piece of the action, people will be naturally curious about your next move.
It takes a brave new world in which artists can flourish. In a world where festival news and announcements are often treated as the headlines on the evening news, it’s hard for artists to get the word out about the many benefits they can receive from participating in events like these. Make your art come alive by using the resources available to both promote yourself and to increase awareness of your art. This may require a little extra work, but it will be worth it in the end.