The Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts celebrated its 60th anniversary with new attractions, returning traditions and hundreds of artists filling downtown State College and Penn State’s campus, continuing a summer tradition that has become one of the region’s signature events.
Held July 8-12, this year’s festival featured more than 300 juried artists from across the country, live music on indoor and outdoor stages, children’s activities, street painting, food vendors and exhibitions throughout downtown and campus.
Since its founding in 1967, the festival has grown into one of the nation’s top-ranked juried art fairs while drawing more than 125,000 visitors annually and serving as a major summer attraction for the region.
Jennifer Shuey, the festival’s director of development, says reaching the 60-year milestone offered an opportunity to celebrate the event’s history while introducing something new to the table for visitors.
“One of the new elements that we added was a live mural exhibition, so that helped tie both our birthday and our festival back to the America 250 celebration and the four mural designs that we chose from the applications that we got, they were all based around the America 250 theme, and for something fun and new for people to experience and enjoy,” Shuey said. “We’ll see if it becomes a regular part of the festival.”
During festival weekend, it’s all hands on deck for festival organizers and volunteers. Throughout the rest of the year, Shuey is meeting with businesses, families and individuals who provide the sponsorships and charitable donations that make the event possible.
“It takes a community to make this event, and we’re very appreciative of the support that they give us,” she said.
The festival continued to adapt to ongoing construction on Penn State’s campus. Once again, this year, artists were relocated around the Sackett Building project, with organizers expanding exhibition space along Pollock Road while working to maintain a seamless connection between the downtown and campus portions of the show.
“It’s the second year of three that our footprint is a little bit different on campus because of construction on the Sackett building,” Shuey said. “Trying to make sure that the two halves of the festival are knitted together is something that’s important to us. We have about half of our artists on campus and half on the town side…The artists seem actually pretty pleased with the way that is working, so we’re glad that everybody hangs with us through the changes.”
Adjusting to changes is part of the collaborative spirit of the festival.
Like many previous festivals, this year’s event included a brief interruption from summer weather on Friday afternoon when a strong storm temporarily disrupted festivities .
“It wouldn’t be an arts festival without some weather event, so we had ours on Friday, but then we were able to kind of patch things back together and Saturday and Sunday were both beautiful days at the festival,” Shuey said.
Despite the storm, organizers said artists reported a successful weekend.
“We’re hearing anecdotally from the artists that they seemed to have a good year, which keeps the artists happy, which means helping them to be successful, is what keeps them coming back year after year, and they’re really the bedrock of the whole event,” she said.
Among those artists was Steve Szynal, owner of Steven Szynal Design, whose three-dimensional architectural artwork traces its origins back to his time as a Penn State architecture student.
“My business is mainly three-dimensional art, so I describe it as something sort of living between a flat rendering and a 3D architectural model or an architectural model,” Szynal said. “I started doing it here while I was at architecture school at Penn State in the 80s…I’ve been doing it for 40 years now.”
Although he has attended Arts Fest as a visitor for four decades, this year marked his fourth exhibiting after purchasing a second home in State College.
“For me personally and my wife, it’s been really great because we’ve met tons of young alumni which is really cool, and people from our era who we never had met before and would probably never have met, even though we went to school at the same time because the university is so large,” he said. “That has been really great.”
His Penn State-inspired and city landscape artwork has helped grow his business each year.
“I think for me personally, because I have a lot of Penn State stuff, I get strong attendance,” Szynal said. “And, I mean, the atmosphere is never bad.”
Preparing for the festival is a months-long process for artists as well as organizers. Szynal says he’s been preparing for the festival since the new year.
“I’ve been working the last five months to get ready for this,” Szynal said. “I’m working on those, trying to finish those, and just build stuff to fill the tent and have some backups.”
First-time exhibitor Kassandra Santilli made the trip from North Carolina after being accepted from the festival’s waitlist just days before it started. The owner of Sandy Beaches Shop creates handcrafted coastal jewelry featuring hand-painted waves and real sand.
“This is actually my first year at this festival, but I’ve been doing festivals full time for about five, six years,” Santilli said. “This is actually the furthest north I’ve gone, but I go all the way down to Florida.”
After scrambling to prepare for the show, Santilli said the experience exceeded her expectations.
“It’s been amazing, actually. The volunteers here are top-notch. Everyone’s super friendly. The art at this festival is insane; it’s so good,” Santilli said. “So I’ve really liked getting to see all the new art, especially because I haven’t done this one before, so I get to see new vendors. Everything about it has just been a really positive experience. I think this is maybe my favorite one I’ve ever done.”
Friday’s storm briefly tested exhibitors, but Santilli said visitors returned quickly once the weather cleared.
“It was really quite scary,” Santilli said. “We made it in one piece. It took a couple hours to reset and get everything put back in place, but it really bounced back. I would think that the day would have kind of ended with that, and people came right back out.”
Away from her booth, Santilli spent time exploring State College.
“I really liked this area. I’ve never been truly to Pennsylvania. I’ve only driven through, so it was really fun to get to see the town and like all the really local restaurants and bars. I had a great time just bopping around,” she said.
Of her work, Santilli said, “My hope is that my handcrafted art will help connect people to memories past, future vacations, and the magic that comes along with a good day at the beach.”
While festivalgoers experience five days of art and entertainment each July, Shuey said the event is the product of year-round work by three full-time staff members, hundreds of volunteers, sponsors, donors and community partners.
“It takes all year to get it all together, but definitely during the festival and the couple weeks leading up to it, we have hundreds of volunteers that help make it run smoothly,” she said.
After each festival concludes, organizers immediately begin reviewing artist surveys, thanking volunteers and sponsors and planning for the following year, with artist applications opening around Thanksgiving.
“It’s a labor of love for us and for the community,” Shuey said. “We continue to rely on community support.”
