Downtown arts festival celebrates 35 years

Courtesy of artsBHAM

Magic City Art Connection will again take up residence at Linn Park on the final weekend of April as it celebrates its 35th year of presenting art, music and food to the city of Birmingham.

In addition to more than 200 artists displaying thousands of works April 27-29, MCAC features its annual Corks and Chefs: A Taste of Birmingham event April 28-29. From noon to 3 p.m. each of those days, ticket holders will gain entry to the event tent, where they can attend guided tastings, seated seminars and chef demos from many restaurants, including Chez Lulu, El Barrio Restaurante y Bar, Habitat Feed & Social, East West, Flip Burger Boutique, Rougaroux and Texas de Brazil.

Twenty-four-year-old Birmingham native and Cahaba Heights resident Mia Badham was selected as this year’s emerging artist.

“I am still in awe at my selection,” she says. “I knew that I had it in me; it is just happening so fast. This feels like the first step of something huge, like the launching point.”

According to MCAC, the honor is given out annually to “spotlight, support and present new artists of great artistic potential and integrity.”

Badham, who graduated from UAB with a bachelor of fine arts and minors in art history and marketing, was an artist at last year’s MCAC and has also displayed her work at Birmingham Art Crawl and Hoover’s Moss Rock Festival. Badham explores various media in her work, but said she is mostly drawn to mixed media sculpting and ceramics. 

She is currently employed as a studio manager for local ceramic artist and production potter Susan Gordon.

This year’s MCAC also places the spotlight on women in the modern Alabama art scene, sporting a group of featured female artists as this year’s Movers and Shakers in the Alabama Art World.

The 35th festival will also feature live music and dance performances. Interactive art workshops are free for children as part of the MCAC’s Imagination Festival, which will feature lessons in puppetry, mobile making and junk art sculpture.

To find out about 2018 featured artist Lisa Krannichfeld as well as other planned events as part of this year’s festival, visit MagicCityArt.com.