Kentuck Art Night offers family-friendly entertainment
Posted Apr 3, 2019 at 6:05 PM
Though internationally known for its two-day October folk, contemporary and outsider art festival, Kentuck doesn’t close when that weekend ends. It’s a year-around art center, housed in a campus of buildings at 503 Main Ave. in downtown Northport, offering workshops, classes and other programming. For more than 20 years, one of its featured programs has been Art Night, a family-friendly free event held first Thursdays 5-8 p.m. Art Night opens exhibits, offers live music, food and drink, and throws wide the doors of its 10 studio artists’ workshops.
Built around an early ’70s heritage festival, Kentuck often showcases folk art and traditional craft by local and national artisans, but branches out into contemporary forms. For 2019, Kentuck is honoring Alabama’s bicentennial by featuring only artists from within the state. According to Ashley Williams, marketing manager, Art Night mostly reaches the Northport and Tuscaloosa communities, and can draw an audience of about 400 people.
Missy Miles will be featured at today’s Art Night. Miles, from Camden, decorates gourds and paints murals. After receiving a gourd for a Valentine’s Day gift in 2005, Miles began using them in her art. Over time Miles learned how to carve, bead, and burn, to craft her creations. In addition to her gourds, Miles has created more than 80 murals. Her exhibit is titled “My Southern Ties” and will feature gourds, quilting, paintings and jewelry.
Blues singer Debbie Bond, with her keyboard-playing husband Radiator Rick, will perform in the Courtyard of Wonders, performing some new songs from an upcoming album. Also in the Courtyard, there’ll be pop-up shops featuring Altered Perceptions Apparel & Jewelry, and D. M. Kirwin’s wood carvings inspired by classic horror films. George Jones Jr.’s “Broom Traditions: Honoring Four Generations” continues its run in the Teer Gallery, located in the Georgine Clarke Building. New Kentuck studio artist Noelle Mercurio will have a grand opening of her space.
For more, call 758-1257, or see www.kentuck.org.
