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Last year’s tornado may have canceled the Marshalltown Art Festival, but it will be back and better than ever from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. July 20. Free and open to the public, it will feature artists selling their wares, live music, food vendors and free art activities.

Last year’s tornado may have canceled the Marshalltown Art Festival, but it will be back and better than ever from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. July 20. Free and open to the public, it will feature artists selling their wares, live music, food vendors and free art activities.

“The tornado hit the day before the festival, so we did have to cancel last year, which was devastating, but from our perspective, we were thinking about how we could help rebuild our community,” said Amber Danielson, who serves as executive director of the Marshall County Arts and Culture Alliance, which puts on this event each year with the help of other sponsors. “We knew almost immediately that we’d have the 2019 event, despite not knowing the challenges of logistics, we knew we would have it downtown.”

Activities that were to have been held on the Marshall County Courthouse lawn will now be held along East Main Street between Center Street and Second Avenue. Many things will be stationed in the Gallery Garden and the adjacent public parking lot.

Nearly 50 professional artists will set up shop, selling items including ceramics, glass, jewelry, photography, sculpture, wood, mixed media, drawings, paintings, fiber, leather and paper. A juried art show, potential participants had to go before a panel in March where their work was judged.

“We look at things like what price their work is at, the medium, etc., and we make sure we have a great variety with different price ranges — with the highest quality,” Danielson said.

Seven artists come from Marshall County — which is a record number. The rest come from other parts of Iowa, the Midwest and other states.

Yoga, hosted by the YMCA-YWCA will take place at 8:30 a.m. in front of the Glick-Sower House.

Chalk artist Kathleen Roling will be creating art at the intersection of First Avenue and East Main Street; grafitti artists, Dye and Darian Davenport, will be set up on East Main Street and charcoal artist Quinn Goodman will be located in the Gallery Garden.

Two stages will provide music during the entire festival.

Main Stage (located on the corner of East Main Street and Second Avenue):

Dave’s Little Big Band from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m.; Austin Chadderdon from 11:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.; Dustin Smith from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.; Lehto and Wright from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. and the headliner, Brazilian 2wins from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Acoustic Stage (located on the corner of East Main Street and Center Street):

Buz Owen from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m.; Janet Collison from 11 a.m. to noon; Kieth Lambert from noon to 1 p.m.; Billy Wilson from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.; Linda Harvey from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. and Luke Wymore from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.

“I’ve had some people joke that this could be a Marshalltown music festival with art added to it, instead of the other way around, because we have some great performing artists this year,” Danielson said.

Raffle tickets are $5 each and can be purchased the day of the festival. The drawing will be held at 5 p.m. and you do not have to be present to win. Prizes are provided by ceramics artist Ruben Ruiz and drawing artist Steve Nowatzki.

Youth will be able to enjoy sidewalk chalk, a balloon artist, henna artist and face painting. The Portrait Studio from Des Moines will do one-of-a-kind self-portraits. The Knotty Nail will be hosting classes to make your own custom string art, for all ages, at 10:30 a.m. and noon. (Walk-ins are welcome).

Food vendors will include The Lunch Box, Sweet Treats, Apple Berry Farm, Noon Lions Club and St. Mary Catholic Church. Alcohol will be available from Summerset Winery, Firetrucker Brewery, Lake Time Brewery and Confluence Brewing.

“The festival is an opportunity for our community members to come and celebrate how far we’ve come in rebuilding in a year,” she said. “The downtown is the heart of our community and we want to encourage attendees to continue their stay and visit our beautiful shops and all our awesome restaurants.”

For more information, contact the Alliance at 641-752-2787. To see a full schedule, visit marshalltownartfestival.org.