Amanda Cloutier, a former Cirque du Soleil seamstress turned independent artist, has never set foot in Tooele City. For that matter, she’s never set foot in Salt Lake City, though she says she drove past it once.
This afternoon, she packs her bags for the Tooele Arts Festival, which begins this Friday at the Tooele City Park.
Cloutier, who makes handmade hooded towels that are designed to look like sharks, superheroes or princesses, heard about the Tooele Arts Festival from a friend. The festival came highly recommended, she said, and since she was looking for a way to diversify her customer base, she decided the trek up from her home in Las Vegas would be worth the effort.
And, well, the break from the 114-degree Las Vegas heat, she said.
The number and diversity of vendors, as well as good organization, are key to the success of an arts festival, Cloutier said. But it was her friend’s reports of large crowds of people who thoroughly enjoyed the event that she said drew her to Tooele.
Word of mouth advertising such as this has played a key role in the development of the Tooele Arts Festival, which has grown both in attendance as well as quality in recent years, said Becky Bracken, a local resident who has attended the arts festival as a vendor for the last three years.
Bracken, a 20-year Tooele resident who retired from law enforcement, said she began attending the Tooele Arts Festival because she needed to sell some of the crafts that were beginning to fill up her basement. Bracken said she will sell over $1,000 worth of handmade jewelry and clay sculptures during the three-day event.
The opportunity to meet other artists from all over the country, as well as the entertainment, help to make the arts festival an enjoyable way to spend a weekend. She said the festival does a good job of keeping vendors as entertained as the patrons.
But Bracken said it was the friendly atmosphere of the event that really makes Tooele’s arts festival stand out above the others.
“This one seems more personable,” she said. “The people who run it seem to know everyone and come up and make sure everything is OK. They truly seem to care that everything runs smoothly.”
But it’s not just management. Bracken said she looks forward each year to seeing the people she met at the last festival and to getting acquainted with new arrivals.
“It’s just friendly. It’s everyone,” she said.
Kaye Beeny, director of the Tooele Arts Festival, said she too had fond friendships forged at the festival — to the extent that the regulars have begun to feel like family.
“In the four short years that I’ve been directly involved with the festival, I’ve made friendships with the artists who return year after year,” she said. “Many of the artists who come to the Tooele festival are like a mini-family. When an artist can’t make it to the festival due to sickness or family emergency, everyone is concerned and sends their wells wishes. The artists look out for each other, they help each other, and they are all so friendly.”
The Tooele Arts Festival will open Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Tooele City Park between Vine Street and the Pratt Aquatic Center at 10 a.m. Closing acts begin at 8:30 p.m. Friday, 8:15 p.m. on Saturday, and 3:30 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is free.
elpenrod@tooeletranscript.com