Downtown Summerlin hosts annual arts & crafts festival this weekend

If your idea of the perfect weekend includes fine art, top-notch entertainment, a variety of culinary delights and some unique experiential attractions, the 21st annual Summerlin Festival of Arts is for you.

Set this weekend, Oct. 8 and 9, at Downtown Summerlin, the Festival of Arts is a cherished fall tradition in the master-planned community and attracted more than 30,000 festival-goers this past year.

The Howard Hughes Corp., developer of Summerlin and organizer of the festival, expects the crowd to grow even more this year with a robust lineup of art and entertainment.

“The Summerlin Festival of Arts continues to expand its offerings on the heels of its very successful move to Downtown Summerlin last year,” said Danielle Bisterfeldt, vice president of marketing, Summerlin. “The festival is now in its 21st year and has easily earned a reputation for quality art and entertainment, and now, delicious culinary offerings from Downtown Summerlin restaurants and eateries. With so many talented singers, dancers and musicians joining the painters, sculptors and photographers, the Summerlin Festival is truly a celebration of the arts.”

Headlining the festival’s art offerings are more than 100 artists and craftsman from throughout the country who were selected through a juried process to showcase and sell their original creations. Mediums include photography, woodwork, oil, watercolor, sculpture, glass, jewelry, metal and pottery.

Among the artists new to the festival this year are two well-known names from Laguna Beach, California: Marcus Thesing, a glassblower, and Sarvi Hosseini, a jeweler.

The couple frequently have exhibited at the main art festival in Laguna and the famed Sawdust Art &Craft Festival.

Thesing was trained by John Barber, a pioneer of the New Renaissance glass movement. He creates hand-blown art glass with a sculptural emphasis. Color is created from metal and mineral oxide, and some of his pieces are sandblasted to create a matte finish.

Hosseini creates unique jewelry via the lost-wax casting process, which involves meticulously hand-carved waxes and hand casting into solid gold and sterling silver. She then adds precious stones, leather and enamel for added color and texture.

With many new artists, the festival’s favorites also are returning, including metalworker Mike Beals, watercolorist Nikki Sands and abstract expressionist painter Richard Daniel, among dozens of others.

Taking lead roles in the festival’s entertainment lineup is a performance from Steve Wynn’s “Show Stoppers,” tap-dancing twins Sean &John of “Absinthe” at Caesars Palace, pop-up performances by the Nevada Ballet Theatre throughout the venue, and popular singers and bands, including Avalon Landing and Chadwick Johnson.

Local schools will be well-represented with performances from Del Sol High School’s mariachi band, Palo Verde High School Jazz Band, The Meadows Elite Strings and the Faith Lutheran High School Women’s Ensemble.

A new dance troupe headed by former Cirque performer, Tyrell Rolle, also will perform, as will jazz singer Toscha Comeaux and a quartet from Nevada School of the Arts.

Interactive art activities at the Children’s Pavilion, hosted by Discovery Children’s Museum, include fall-themed art projects such as designing marbled leaves, scented apples and tissue paper trees. Children and parents also can enjoy balloon-art creations, face-painting, a mascot meet and greet, and Chef Chan Boupha from Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts Las Vegas returns with live pumpkin and vegetable carving demonstrations.

Other unique activities include The Art of Performance Driving Experience in a Jaguar or Land Rover with race car driver Davy Jones; a children’s Putt-Putt challenge hosted by Shriners Hospitals for Children Open; demonstrations of robots built by Faith Lutheran High School engineering students; children’s science activities hosted by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas engineering department &Nevada Society of Professional Engineers; an opportunity to meet the team and see the design of UNLV’s Solar Decathlon Team; and an opportunity support HomeAid Southern Nevada’s “Bag Hunger” Donation Drive.

The Summerlin Festival of Arts will be held on The Lawn in Downtown Summerlin from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is free to the public. Sponsors include the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Land Rover Las Vegas, Cox Communications and KSNE-FM, Sunny 106.5.

For more information, visit summerlin.com. Follow live updates and join the social media conversation with #SummerlinArts and @SummerlinLV on Twitter; Summerlin on Facebook; and @Summerlin on Instagram.