18th Annual Jerry Brown Arts Festival – March 7th and 8th, 2020

For more information please visit www.jbaf.org

 

Shop for One-of-a-Kind Artwork at the Annual Jerry Brown Arts Festival

Hamilton, Alabama – Juried artists from across the Southeast will make their way to North Alabama the first weekend in March for the town of Hamilton’s highly acclaimed art festival. Now in its eighteenth year, the Jerry Brown Arts Festival (JBAF) will be held March 7-8, 2020, and confirmed for this year’s event are over 50 artists from Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina who will be creating and demonstrating throughout the weekend.

Presented by the Northwest Alabama Arts Council, the JBAF offers two days of quality folk art exhibition, an art station for children and free admission and parking. The JBAF is known for its emphasis on Southern folk art, but there are various mediums available at each year’s festival to include pottery, multiple forms of glass art, mixed media, jewelry making, wood art/carving, metal art, sculptures, gourd art, quilting, fabric art, paintings, basket weaving, wire art and photography. Over 50 artists offering one-of-a-kind creations and masterpieces will be on hand and festival goers will have the opportunity to shop their incredible work and a free kids’ art station will be provided where children can create their own works of art.

Featured artist for this year’s festival is the “Birdhouse Man,” Ray Dutton, of Moulton, Ala. Following a career as a carpenter, Dutton, along with his wife, began traveling the festival circuit throughout the Southeast 20 years ago. The award-winning artist is known for his colorful and elaborate birdhouses. Other hand-crafted items by Dutton include four different styles of churches, bird feeders, butterfly houses, bat houses and carpenter bee traps. At the 2020 JBAF, Dutton will debut a new style of butterfly house and a school bus birdhouse.

The festival honors the late Jerry Brown, a ninth-generation potter whose work can be found in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. Brown was awarded the National Heritage Fellowship in 1992, as well as receiving numerous merit awards, and in 2003, he was awarded the Alabama Heritage Award from the Alabama Arts Council. Brown, who passed away unexpectedly in 2016, was the only known potter in the United States who used a mule, Blue the Mule, to help him mill clay for his pottery. For more information on Brown and his mule, visit http://www.jerrybrownpottery.com.

Set to take place at the Tombigbee Electric Cooperative, located underneath the city’s water tower at 3196 County Highway 55 in Hamilton, the festival location offers easy access for travelers by taking exit 14 on Interstate 22 (formerly U.S. Highway 78). Festival hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is free and parking is free. For more information, visit http://www.jbaf.org or call 205.921.9483 or follow the event on Facebook at Jerry Brown Arts Festival and on Twitter @JerryBrownFest.

About Alabama Mountain Lakes Tourist Association (AMLA)

AMLA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion and development of the travel industry within the 16 northernmost counties of the state. It is supported by 500-plus members consist of chambers of commerce, Convention & Visitors Bureaus, attractions, campgrounds, festivals, communities, counties, golf courses, restaurants, tour operators, accommodations, vendors, financial institutions and individuals. Counties included within the AMLA region are Blount, Cherokee, Colbert, Cullman, DeKalb, Etowah, Franklin, Jackson, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Limestone, Madison, Marion, Marshall, Morgan and Winston. Additional information on North Alabama destinations, accommodations and special events is available from the AMLA by calling 800.648.5381 or by visiting their web site at http://www.NorthAlabama.org.

2019 Jerry Brown Arts Festival to Feature Art of the 1819 Era

Decatur, Ala. (February 19, 2019) – A must see for this spring is Hamilton’s highly acclaimed art festival where one-of-a-kind creations and masterpieces from juried artists from across the Southeast will be on display. Now in its seventeenth year and designated an official Alabama Bicentennial event, the Jerry Brown Arts Festival (JBAF) is set for March 2-3, 2019, and confirmed for this year’s event are over 60 artists from Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, North Carolina and South Carolina who will be creating and demonstrating throughout the weekend.

 Presented by the Northwest Alabama Arts Council, the JBAF offers two days of quality folk art exhibition, an art station for children and free admission and parking. This year’s event is an official Alabama Bicentennial event and artists will be demonstrating time-period art of the 1819 era. The JBAF is known for its emphasis on Southern folk art, but there are various mediums available at each year’s festival to include: pottery, multiple forms of glass art, mixed media, jewelry making, wood art/carving, metal art, sculptures, gourd art, quilting, fabric art, paintings, basket weaving, wire art and photography. Festival attendees will have the opportunity to shop the work of the artists and a free kids’ art station will be provided where children can create their own works of art.

 The featured artist for this year’s festival is Christine Bussler of Fayetteville, Tenn. Christine is returning to the JBAF for the fifth time. She is a self-taught artist and paints by emotion and instinct. She started painting in 2012 after retiring from the U.S. Navy as an aircraft maintenance officer and then as a licensed veterinary technician. It was a “Sip and Stroke” painting party that brought back the memories of her as a little child, drawing all the time and wanting to go to art school. Her parents’ plan was for her to graduate from college and have a professional career so she was discouraged from pursuing art. Now, in the last six years, she has built a successful business selling her work and teaching acrylic painting and graphite drawing.

 The festival honors the late Jerry Brown, a ninth generation potter whose work can be found in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. Brown was awarded the National Heritage Fellowship in 1992, as well as receiving numerous merit awards, and in 2003, he was awarded the Alabama Heritage Award from the Alabama Arts Council. Brown, who passed away unexpectedly in 2016, was the only known potter in the United States who used a mule, Blue the Mule, to help him mill clay for his pottery. For more information on Brown and his mule, visit www.jerrybrownpottery.com.

 Set to take place at the Tombigbee Electric Cooperative, located underneath the city’s water tower at 3196 County Highway 55 in Hamilton, the festival location offers easy access for travelers by taking exit 14 on Interstate 22 (formerly U.S. Highway 78). Festival hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is free and parking is free. For more information, visit www.jbaf.org or call 205.921.9483 or follow the event on Facebook at Jerry Brown Arts Festival and on Twitter @JerryBrownFest.

HAMILTON, SMITHSONIAN POTTER JERRY BROWN DIES

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
HAMILTON, SMITHSONIAN POTTER JERRY BROWN DIES
March 4, 2016

It is with heavy hearts the Northwest Alabama Arts Council announces the passing of our beloved Jerry Brown. Jerry passed away late this evening at North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo, Mississippi after a brief illness.

“On behalf of the arts council and Jerry Brown Arts Festival, we extend our prayers and sincerest condolences to Jerry’s wife, Sandra, and his entire family,” stated arts council president Tony Williams.  Williams continued, “”Jerry and Sandra Brown expressed a sincere desire for the Jerry Brown Arts Festival to go forward as planned. It will be held in his honor and memory.”

Upon completion of arrangements by the family with the funeral home, memorial service information will be released to the public.  In 1992, the ninth-generation potter was awarded the National Heritage Fellowship and currently has five pieces of pottery on exhibit in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. The Alabama State Council on the Arts awarded the Alabama Folk Heritage Award to him in 2003. Also in 2003, the Jerry Brown Arts Festival was created in his hometown of Hamilton, Alabama, a juried arts festival which has been recognized as a Top 20 event in the Southeastern United States for six of the last eight years. The festival is attended by several thousand people from 15 to 20 states annually the first weekend in March.

Additionally, Jerry Brown Pottery, in business since 1982, is one of the top destinations for tourists in north Alabama, with people traveling from all across the country to see Jerry, his mule Blue, and the primitive groundhog kiln, in what is believed to be the only operating mule-powered mill in the United States. Brown’s pottery is featured in homes, offices, governmental buildings, exhibition halls, and museums all over the world.

Besides being one of the leading spokespeople for the State of Alabama’s arts and tourism departments, one of Brown’s favorite programs he participated in has been the “Molding Hearts, Hands & Minds” program. This program, created by the Northwest Alabama Arts Council, involves fourth-grade students studying the Alabama History curriculum who are selected each year to come to the pottery shop. With Brown’s assistance, they make their own piece of pottery, which is then displayed at the festival. Children from every school in Marion County have participated in this program over the past decade.

14th Annual Jerry Brown Arts Festival

www.jbaf.org