by Darissa Townes
If there’s one thing I never stop talking about during springtime, it’s the Atlanta Dogwood Festival. Every year since 1936, Piedmont Park hosts the weekend-long festival celebrating art and international culture by turning the entire park into a hotspot full of artists selling their masterpieces, a variety of food vendors and people from around the world sharing their culture with each other through music and education. This year celebrated the 80th anniversary of the festival and for the occasion, a bronze bench made in the shape of a blooming dogwood tree branch was commissioned from Cherry Lion Studios.
The festival is something that I’ve gone to since coming to SCAD in 2013 and I’ve constantly encouraged my fellow classmates to go. Not only is it a great place to relax after taking rigorous classes, but it’s also the perfect opportunity to draw as hundreds of people attend.
For any foodies out there, the festival is also a great place to satisfy your tastebuds. Every year that I’ve gone, I’ve made sure to save enough cash to buy a crab cake sandwich. The sandwich itself isn’t expensive (although $10 for food the size of your palm is still pretty high), but some of the stands were cash-only, and who wants to pay an ATM fee to try a small, overpriced bite?
One of the parts of this festival that I look forward to the most is seeing the wide range of age groups that go. After buying my festival treat, I took a seat on the steep hill by 10th Street to take in the atmosphere. As I sat on the hill, I watched little kids roll down the banks, families laying on blankets for a picnic, and the locals going for their afternoon jog, somehow ignoring all of the activity.
Walking down the artist market as a budding artist was somewhat stressful. I’ve always felt that I was obligated to see every single booth out of respect for fellow creators. I didn’t walk into any of the booths though, as the $300 price tags were enough to tell me that browsing wasn’t allowed. However, I was quite pleased to see other people stopping in their tracks to gaze at some of the work being displayed. It was even more satisfying to see the glowing faces of people carrying armfuls of woven baskets and toting metallic sculptures of dogs and pigs.
As my final year at SCAD comes to a close, this festival was rather bittersweet. I hope to come back in the years to come (perhaps with a little bit more money) so I can eat more than crab cake sandwiches and do more to help fellow artists instead of window-shopping. Before any of you leave SCAD Atlanta, try to go to the Dogwood Festival at least once. It’s one of the things that I’ll miss the most about this city.
