Thousands visit downtown Fort Worth for annual art festival
April 10,2022
See full CBS News article by Alexis Wainwright here.
With the warm weather this weekend, thousands of people took some time to stop by the Main Street Art Festival in downtown Fort Worth.
This is the first time the event took place since the pandemic, and visitors told CBS 11 that they are happy to attend.
"Oh my God, it's awesome," Monica McGill of Irving said. "We are really enjoying it."
McGill was one of many people attracted to the annual event.
The four-day event includes over 200 artists who organizers say will sell an estimated $4 million worth of art and nearly 100 musical acts.
"It's like been closed for so long, so just trying to enjoy the, you know, getting out with my kids," McGill said.
She said she's excited to get back out but also to enjoy the different art work around.
"I'm loving it. We picked up a few things," McGill said.
One of those things was from Fort Worth artist Jeribai Andrew-JaJa, who is showcasing his work at the festival.
"The style of art that I create now is called hyper-realism which is creating with a very key attention to details and creating emotions from the drawings," Andrew-JaJa said.
He said it means the world to have something like this because it gives artists a platform for their work to be seen.
"This show brings thousands of people your way and for someone like me... I was blessed and honored to win the best-in-show," Andrew-JaJa said. "it also brought more people my way and it does very well in revenue."
Andrew-JaJa said the event has already helped bring him at least $7,000.
Even though it's been two years since the last show, the pandemic gave him more inspiration and time to get creative with his work.
"People are just so happy to come back out there, and [for] many artists the pandemic was the creating process, so we have a lot to show and I was one of them," Andrew-JaJa said. "So it's very reconciling, I would say, with people coming to see your art, especially for me because I created many works inspired through the pandemic."