Art Enthusiasts Pack Acworth Streets

ACWORTH — Several thousand people filled Main Street over the weekend for the city’s 12th annual Art Fest.

More than 100 art vendors were present for the two-day festival, one of two times a year the city closes Main Street. The other is for Taste of Acworth in October.

“It is a really big deal,” said Taylor Aubrey, marketing and communications director. “We love it because over 100 art vendors and it’s right in front of our downtown shops.”

Vendors came from all over the Southeast to sell their work, from paintings and sculptures to carvings and lights.

John Ellison runs Iron Rustoration in Tyrone, a small town in Fayette County. His work involves turning scrap metal into sculptures.

“What I’ll do is take scrap metal, clean it up a bit, connect it with something and hopefully make it desirable,” Ellison said.

For example, he created the word “DAWGS” — for the Georgia Bulldogs — out of horseshoes.

“Personally, I really like the Last Supper, which is about 13 to 14 hours of work,” Ellison said. “It’s a lot of detail, and I like it. I sold the first one at this event last year.”

Kyle Wilson from Selma, North Carolina, specializes in photography. The colors in his photos stand out thanks to a style known as “high dynamic range,” which involves taking multiple exposures of the same subject, from dark and underexposed to bright and overexposed.

“I combine them to create the final photograph,” Wilson said. “That way you get more realistic light, color and detail than you do with traditional photography. And printing in metal adds another layer of depth and definition.”

Wilson’s subjects include abandoned spots across the Southeast.

“I love rural Americana and the things and places that are left behind or abandoned,” Wilson said. “I travel mostly the back roads along the Southeast, looking for things that are left behind. I photograph things that interest me, and a lot of them I print on metal and I try to sell them on the weekends.”

Tami Fisher, from Marietta, works with lighted décor. Her booth was covered to allow patrons to see the lights glowing from her glassware.

“A lot of (the glassware) are hand-blown,” Fisher said.

Lindsey Dobbins of the Bee’s Knees Artistry is new to painting, having started in August. Her work is predominantly of animals.

“The more color in something, the better,” Dobbins said.