Linda Williams is one of the vigorous organizers of the Sunshine Coast Art Crawl that took place Oct. 20 to 22. She writes that the artist participants of the Art Crawl gathered last Sunday to share their experiences with each other of the weekend event. Tired, but with big smiles all around, they were again so happy with the chance to meet and talk with Crawlers about their art and how and why they do what they do.
Through wind and rain and power outages on Friday, people came from across Canada, the islands, the U.S. and many from other countries with the Art Crawl as their destination. The tally at the end of it all was 38,000 studio visits, up from 35,000 last year; $368,000 in sales directly to the artists, up from $260,000 in 2016; and approximately $87,000 in commissions or workshops.
These figures, combined with the number of visitors in Coast accommodations, restaurants and other businesses, is a real boost to the vitality and richness the arts contribute to the Coast-wide community.
The most repeated comment from the artists was “everyone was so happy and having such a good time.”
Williams says to look for the event again in 2018, Oct. 19 to 21, and she gives a big thank you to everyone who participated, crawled, sponsored, advertised, volunteered, tweeted, Instagrammed, blogged, Facebooked and supported the Art Crawl this year.
