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Louisville’s 39th Annual
Cherokee Triangle Art Fair
Showcases 220 Artists and Craftsmen
Plus Brush, Bottle, and Barrel of the Bluegrass Preview Party

More than 400 Louisville-area, Kentucky-based and out-of-state artist applicants competed for 220 spots in the 39th Annual Cherokee Triangle Art Fair, which is held in Louisville’s historic Cherokee Triangle neighborhood. The spring event is sponsored by the Cherokee Triangle Association and this year’s Art Fair will be held on Saturday, April 24, and Sunday, April 25, the weekend before the Kentucky Derby. Hours for the Art Fair are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., both days. It is free and open to the public.

For 2010, a total of 220 artists have been juried into the fair. The selected participants include Art Fair veterans as well as newcomers. The Cherokee Triangle Art Fair is an outdoor event held in Louisville’s Cherokee Triangle neighborhood on tree-lined Cherokee Parkway between Willow Avenue and Cherokee Road at the Gen. John Breckinridge Castleman statue.

Along with viewing and purchasing original arts and crafts and meeting and talking with artists, Art Fair patrons can also enjoy food, entertainment and music. Family-friendly, the Art Fair features a popular children’s art activity tent, a plant booth with striking plants and a variety of herbs for sale, and the association booth with its offerings of clothing and other items with the Cherokee Triangle logo. On Saturday evening, music and food service will continue until 8 p.m.

The Cherokee Triangle Art Fair is the major fundraiser for Louisville’s Cherokee Triangle Association, and the event’s proceeds are returned to the community and neighborhood in numerous ways. Annually, the Cherokee Triangle Association uses proceeds from the fair to fund summer concerts in Willow Park, to maintain the General Castleman statue and its landscaping, and to make donations to the Highlands/Shelby Park branch of the Louisville Free Public Library, the Highlands Communities Ministries and to the Olmsted Parks Conservancy.

Art Fair proceeds also fund an Association office and staff, the Cherokee Triangle Association web site, www.cherokeetriangle.org, and the quarterly Cherokee Triangle Newsletter. In the past, proceeds from the Art Fair have provided some of the funding for the Willow Park restrooms renovation, as well as the authoring and publication of the Cherokee Triangle history book entitled, Cherokee Triangle, A History of the Heart of the Highlands.

In a related event, on Friday evening, April 23, the Legal Aid Society holds its seventh annual Art Fair preview party fundraiser, the “Brush, Bottle, and Barrel of the Bluegrass,” at Louisville Collegiate School from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in Collegiate’s Mary Rodes Lannert Athletic Center. Collegiate is located at 2427 Glenmary Avenue in Louisville. Fifteen selected artists who are participating in the Cherokee Triangle Art Fair will display and sell their art in advance at this preview party. The event also features tastings of Kentucky wines, bourbons and beers, a silent auction and great food. Tickets are $75 and may be purchased at the door, or in advance by calling (502) 584-1254. There is free valet parking.

Setup for the Cherokee Triangle Art Fair begins on Friday, April 23, and the streets of the Art Fair will be closed to through traffic Friday morning and will reopen to traffic at 8 p.m. Sunday evening after the shut-down and clean-up following the Art Fair. Because the Kentucky Derby Festival marathon and mini-marathon on Saturday morning traverse some streets near the Art Fair, access to the neighborhood and Art Fair will be more challenging then.

Adding another dimension of “green” to the springtime Cherokee Triangle Art Fair, there is a major emphasis on recycling. Art Fair volunteers have been recycling for more than a decade. Workers recycle glass, plastic, paper, cardboard and some aluminum. The group purchased recycle bins from Louisville’s Operation Brightside in order to make the recycling emphasis more obvious to Art Fair goers. The recyclables collected during the Art Fair’s weekend run constitute two heaping truckloads of materials.

For the safety of all patrons, the Art Fair is a pet-free zone. Attendees are asked to leave their pets at home. Also, Art Fair organizers request there be no skateboards, skates or rollerblades, and that cyclists walk their bikes within the Art Fair. Close-in parking for the handicapped is available.

For directions to the Cherokee Triangle Art Fair or other fair information, please check the Cherokee Triangle Association web site at www.cherokeetriangle.org.

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