JACKSONVILLE, Texas (KLTV) – The City of Jacksonville is taking full advantage of autumn’s arrival, welcoming the season and inviting the residents to celebrate both it and the city.
The Jacksonville Community Arts Alliance is preparing to host their first fall city-wide event with the goal of highlighting the community.
“Our nonprofit focuses on bringing our community together and making it more vibrant and fun and connected through the arts,” said Cassie Devillier, the organizations executive director. “We have not ever hosted a fall event, so we thought this would be a great time to try a fall event and bring out artisans and musicians and invite everyone to come and shop and dine and stroll downtown Jacksonville with us.”
The event will feature eight different musicians spread throughout the city and playing at different small businesses and restaurants before the day concludes with an inaugural concert at Hazel Hilton Park.
In addition to the music, a Pumpkin house, first created for the Jacksonville Sesquicentennial celebration will also be available for touring throughout the month of October.
“We had a local welder in Jacksonville create a beautiful structure for a pumpkin house similar that you would see at the Dallas Arboretum. And we have thousands and thousands of pumpkins and gourds,” Devillier said. “We have over 40 volunteers who get together and wash pumpkins and make this beautiful creation.”
The pumpkin house will be built at 200 East Commerce Street and is free for the public to visit.
“But beyond that, we have a beautiful pumpkin patch,” — said. “We’re going to have every single thing you could possibly imagine for a family to enjoy-hundreds and hundreds of pumpkins and gourds, we’ll have face painting, we’ll have huge life size bubbles that kids can get inside of.”
A turkey-shaped bounce house and a petting zoo will also be available.
Next to the pumpkin patch, 20 local artists will be set up for an artisan market.
“There is going to be something for everyone,” Amanda Childress, who is on the non-profit’s broad, said. “Just off the top of my head we have oil painting, watercolor, someone who makes custom felt hats that she burns her designs into those. We have pottery, a doodle booth, crochet. I mean, it’s truly going to be really something.”
A children’s art show is also in the books, with submitted artwork, featuring their favorite thing about the city, to be displayed on 214 East Commerce at MBA Finance.
“We cannot wait for everyone to come and see what these little artists have created. And they’re so talented, and some of them are witty, and some of them are exactly what you would expect,” Devillier said.
The event takes place Saturday starting at 10 a.m. and continuing until 5 p.m. before the concert begins at 5 p.m. and continues through 8 p.m. at the Hazel Tilton Park stage.
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