mchen@heraldsun.com; 419-6636
DURHAM -- Potteries, paintings, photography, henna tattoos, dancers and more flocked to the 36th CenterFest Arts Festival in downtown Durham on Sunday.
The sunshine gave traffic a boost at the festival this year, helping out the many artists who came from near and far and have struggled with sales in the recession.
CenterFest organizer Sherry DeVries said 117 artists came this year from nine different states, 38 of whom were new. The festival drew 11,000 on Saturday and had decent traffic Sunday for unveiling its second annual Citizens' Choice awards.
"Sales were a little bit slow, but a lot of artists are reporting that sales increased from earlier," DeVries said in the early afternoon on Sunday.
Donald Portschy, who drove from Greensboro, Ga., with his naturalistic metal sculptures of leaves, butterflies and geometric star shapes, said CenterFest organizers were very attentive to the artists.
His sculptures were selling, but Portschy said many customers are now delaying orders, waiting for their household budgets to ease up before catching him at future street festivals.
"The economy has affected us tremendously," he said. "So many of my artist friends have given it up."
This was Portschy's first year at CenterFest, which he had heard about while displaying his wares at Raleigh's Artsplosure.
"People are still buying. It's just not large pieces," he said.
A number of residents bemoaned the location of CenterFest in the parking lot across from the Farmers' Market. Because of streetscape construction that began in the downtown loop, the festival first moved down Main Street to the Brightleaf Square area in 2005 and then to the parking lot on Foster Street.
This was the first year Michael Bacon had not attended the festival in a while, he said Sunday.
"Organizing CenterFest is a big job and there are compromises that have to be made, but I feel it lost some of its specialness when it moved away from downtown," he said.
Bill Herb said it's been the larger, more prominent shows that have been harder hit by the economy.
Herb's raku pottery and sculptures depicting landscapes and trees grabbed third-place honors Saturday in his first showing at CenterFest.
Herb said he's sold a couple large pieces -- enough to make back the money he spent in coming to the festival.
"It's a small-scale festival, but it's a good, quality show," he said.
This year's show also had a number of new performers, including Faulkner's Dance and Gymnastics of Hillsborough and Triangle Youth Ballet, based in Chapel Hill.
The Visual Artist merit award winners of CenterFest 2009 were:
- Best in Show: Peter Mulcahy, a painter from Pinehurst, with quirky comic strip-like drawings.
- First Place: Richard Wilson Jr., with drawings from Greenville.
- Second Place: Paul Shatz, a photographer from Charleston, S.C.
- Third Place: Bill Herb, a sculptor from Townville, S.C.
