When the doors opened to downtown Austin Utilities Plant for the first Austin ArtWorks Festival in 2012, organizers didn’t know how it would go.

“The first year we had absolutely no idea,” co-chair Bonnie Rietz said. “We knew we wanted to do an artworks festival, but you don’t know how people are going to respond and how everything is going to work. And it was just magical. I mean, it came together so well.”

On Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 23 and 24, the festival returns for its third year, and there’s been plenty of growth and change.

“I think we’ve refined it, taken out some of the kinks,” co-chair Belita Schindler said.

The festival’s turnout alone has been a strong indication of its growth into a premier event in southeastern Minnesota.

In its first year, the festival drew roughly 5,000 people. In it’s second year, it took a 1,500-person jump to about 6,500 people, with every indication that the festival is poised to make another leap.

Part of that is the vast variety accompanying the event.

“From the very beginning, we’ve had the three forms of art: music, authors and visual art,” Rietz said.

 

ArtWorks Center to be front and center

When the festival started, Vision 2020 was still relatively new to Austin, and organizers saw the festival as a way to expose people to the downtown utilities plant, as the future use of the plant was at the center of one of Vision 2020’s 10 top goals. The vision was for the plant to be part of an “arts corridor” along Fourth Avenue.

“It actually goes back to the Vision 2020 projects, and our purpose was two fold and still is two fold, and that is to promote the arts, but then we also wanted, and still want, people to get into the Utilities Building and see what that building’s like,” Rietz said.

Now in its third year, the downtown plant’s future isn’t necessarily set, but the “arts corridor” is set to leap forward with the grand opening of the Austin ArtWorks Center at the former bank building, 300 N. Main St., on Thursday.

The center will be front and center during the festival. Motorcycles — along with two-wheeled vehicles of all shapes and sizes — will be on display during the Spare Arts Motorcycle Show from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday outside the center on Main Street between Second and Fourth Avenues. The show is an expanded version of the Build Art Bike Show held at the bank building this spring.

A Spare Arts Alley Party will be held behind Dusty’s Bar and the backdoor of the ArtWorks Center starting at 8:30 a.m. Friday, featuring the music of Frankie Lee and BB Gun. The 21 and older show will be free, but donations will be accepted for the Holton Art Program.

The ArtWorks Center will also display the work of featured artists Zane York, Joseph Sand and Angie Pipkorn during the festival on Saturday and Sunday. The center will also be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday.

 

‘A venue to show off’

Rietz and Schindler have co-chaired the festival for the last two years and are excited about the talent this year has to offer.

For the second straight year, Cloud Cult is playing the Music in the Outfield concert at Marcusen Park at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday. Last year, Cloud Cult played with Austin natives Martin Zellar and Nick Ciola of the Gear Daddies. This year, they’ll be joined by Pert Near Sandstone.

Along with the ArtWorks Center featured artists and Marcusen, several visual artists will be on display at the downtown Austin Utilities Plant, along with many musicians performing at the plant, including Austin native Charlie Parr, Trace Bundy and several more.

Yet the talent isn’t limited to musicians and artists.

Eleven authors will be featured at the festival this year, including P.S. Duffy, author of “The Cartographer of No Man’s Land,” this year’s Austin Page Turners selection.

There will also be glass blowing, a potter, a hoola-hoop artist, a mosaic artist and an artist who sets up a canvas and allows anyone who wants to participate in making a painting. The Volkswagon Bug will also be set up for children to paint, as in previous years.

“I think for the artists, authors and musicians who live here in town, too, to have a venue to show off your work, for the musicians to have a place where they can go onstage and perform, and people enjoy them.” Rietz said. “To have a place in your own hometown that features you, where you can go and talk about it, and people can go and ask you questions. It’s just neat.”

The festival used to require artists to have a tie to Austin, but it has expanded to include other artists, musicians and authors.

“Once you’ve done it, that really helps,” Rietz said.

Along with the opening of the ArtWorks Center, another big change this year is the food.

The last two years have featured carnival-like food, with vendors selling from their own stands. This year, the Holiday Inn will cater the event and offer standard food such as burgers, but also some new treats, like a hummus plate and fruit kabobs. The food will also be located in only one area this year at the plant.

“So that people will know where to go for food, and then it’s right by a huge tent, where they can sit and eat and listen to the outside scene and hear the outside music,” Rietz said.

 

‘We’re really proud of it’

One of the things that makes the Austin ArtWorks Festival stand out is the volunteers that are ready and willing to help the artists, according to Rietz and Schindler.

“When the artists come in on Friday, we have people there, ready to help them,” Rietz said. “On the two days of the festival, we have volunteers that come and check on everybody, ask if they want water, watch their stuff if they need to have a break. Those are types of things that you don’t get at all festivals, and we’re, it just kind of happened serendipitously the first year, and now we’re really proud of it.”

Rietz and Schindler have been excited to see some local artists being inspired by the festival and making themselves known. Yet they are also looking toward the future, and won’t stop when the festival is finished.

“When the festival’s done, we kind of look at it and go, what could we improve on?” Rietz said. “It’ll be interesting to see after this year’s festival, now what happens.”

—Eric Johnson and Jason Schoonover contributed to this report.

 

ArtWorks schedule

Saturday

Galleries Open 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; ArtWorks Center Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Spare Arts Show Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Authors

10 a.m. Phil Formo

11 a.m. Randy Hilmer

12 p.m. Julie Kramer

1 p.m. Carole Hyder

2 p.m. P.S. Duffy

3 p.m. Sherrie Hansen

4 p.m. Kristy Bina

 

Outdoor Music

9 a.m. Austin High School Jazz Band

9:45 a.m. Brian Gorman

10:30 a.m. Full Circle

11:15 a.m. Terry Schmidt

12 p.m. Weathered Ivan

1 p.m. Echo Messenger

2 p.m. Joshua Whalen

3 p.m. Cosmic

4 p.m. Trace Bundy

 

Indoor Music

9 a.m. Cedar River Strings

10 a.m. Kalle Akkerman

11 a.m. LeBelle Vita

12 p.m. S a.m. Bergstrom

1 p.m. Jim Knudson

2 p.m. Peter Jacobs

 

Music in the Outfield

Cloud Cult and Pert Near Sandstone

Tickets $25, available at the gate.

Doors 6 p.m.

Concert 7:30 p.m.

Austin’s Marcusen Park, 901 S. Main St.

 

Sunday

Galleries Open 11 a.m.-5 p.m.; ArtWorks Center Open 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

Authors

12 p.m. Al Batt

1 p.m. Grant Blackwood

2 p.m. Lydia Emma Niebuhr

3 p.m. Chuck Keller

 

Outdoor Music

11 a.m. DC Drifters

12 p.m. The SPAMettes

1 p.m. Jeremy Jewell

2 p.m. Kevin Bowe & the Okema Prophets

3 p.m. The Last Revel

4 p.m. Charlie Parr

 

Indoor Music

12 p.m. Confuocoquartet

1 p.m. Ted Hingecliff

2 p.m. Stringendo

3 p.m. Jon Stowell