Houston's Bayou City Art Festival Downtown Sets May 2 Artists' Application Deadline for Entries

    HOUSTON, TX, April 17, 2009 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Houston's Art Colony Association, whose Bayou City Art Festivals are experiencing record-breaking attendance and multiple national and international awards recognition, is accepting artists' applications for its October 10-11 Bayou City Art Festival Downtown. Deadline for entries for the fine, juried art show is Saturday, May 2, 2009.

"October in Houston is when the weather starts to cools off and Houstonians come out to celebrate at the Bayou City Art Festival Downtown," said Kim Stoilis, Art Colony Association Executive Director. "Each year the Festival gets bigger and better in terms of artists represented, the all-time high attendance and the strong sales for artists," she noted.

Set against the dramatic skyline of the nation's fourth largest city, Bayou City Art Festival Downtown accepts 300 fine artists in 19 media formats, including clay, drawing/pastel, fiber/textiles, furniture, glass, jewelry, leather, metal, mixed media, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, watercolor and wood. The Festival attracts artists of local, regional, national and international acclaim.

Bayou City Art Festivals, ranked the #3 in the country in AmericanStyle Magazine's "TOP 10 Festivals" in February 2009, also were voted "Best Gallery in Houston" in March 2009 by KPRC-TV's Click2Houston.com readers, named "Best Festival in Houston" in the 2008 Houston Press "Best of Houston" magazine and consistently ranked in Sunshine Artist Magazine's Top 50 festivals in the U.S. The Festivals earned multiple Gold and Silver Pinnacle Awards in 2008 from the International Festivals & Events Association.

According to Stoilis, winning Bayou City Art Festival Downtown artists receive the following awards, including jury exempt status for two years (four festivals):

Best of Show: Ribbon and $1,500
Second Place: Ribbon and $750
Third Place: Ribbon and $500
Best Booth: Jury exempt status for two years (four festivals)

To respond to the Bayou City Art Festival Downtown "Call for Entries", artists must submit their profile and upload their images online via ZAPP. The application is available on the Bayou City Art Festival web site, www.bayoucityartfestival.com.

The City of Houston and Houston Parks & Recreation Department, Budweiser, KTRK-TV, which produces a one-half hour television special on Bayou City Art Festival Downtown, Capital One Bank and Legacy at Memorial high-rise are among the Festival sponsors. The Festival is funded in part by grants from the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.

Over the past 37 years, the Bayou City Art Festivals, a 501c(3) organization, has raised more than $2.4 million for local Nonprofit Partner organizations.

For further information, visit bayoucityartfestival.com , or contact Festival Coordinator Kelly Kindred, [email protected] or call (713) 521-0133.

Bayou City Art Festival Downtown 2008 winners:

Steven Potts - Wood - Best in Show
JD Hillberry - Drawing - Featured Artist
Kimber Fiebiger - Sculpture - First Place
Stephanie Rubiano - Mixed Media 2D -Second Place
Lucy & Mel Mendez - Fiber/ Textile - Third Place
Fred Conlon - Metal - Best Booth Display

What 2008 Bayou City Art Festival Downtown Winning Artists Say:

"It's rated one of the top shows in the country and the Texas economy is far stronger than the rest of the country. I'm giddy about the sales, I'm giddy about the attention and I'm giddy about the weather because I'm from Minnesota!" -Kimber Fiebiger, First Place, Bayou City Art Festival Downtown 2008, Minneapolis, MN

"I love coming to Houston - there's no doubt. I love the city. I love to come to Houston because Houstonians interact so well with the artist. They really appreciate the artists. They love art here in Houston and I love the Bayou City Art Festival!" -Stephen Potts, Best in Show, Bayou City Art Festival Downtown 2008, Palmetto, Georgia

Past jurors have included:

• David Brown, Founding Director of Spacetaker, an artist resource center
• Jereann Chaney, named one of the top 200 art collectors in the world in 2008 by ArtNews Magazine
• Richard Fluhr, Houston-based artist who has bought art, sold art, owned a gallery in Houston, shown work in other galleries and has work in permanent collections at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York, the Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi and the British Museum in London
• Christine Gervais, Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts at Rienzi, the European decorative arts collection and gardens of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
• Jonathon Glus, CEO of Houston Arts Alliance
• Christine Jelson West, Executive Director of the Lawndale Art Center, which is dedicated to the presentation of contemporary art with an emphasis on work by Houston artists
• Stephanie Smither, folk art collector
• Gina Sonderegger, Development Director at DiverseWorks, a nonprofit art center dedicated to presenting new visual, performing and literary art
• Cindi Strauss, Curator Modern and Contemporary Decorative Arts and Design, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
• Bart Truxillo, preservation architect, designer and developer

To respond to the Bayou City Art Festival Downtown "Call for Entries", artists must submit their profile and upload their images online via ZAPP. The application is available on the Bayou City Art Festival web site, www.bayoucityartfestival.com.

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