Publicity key leading up to Gilroy’s second annual celebration
of local art, wines, beers
Christmas Hill Park isn’t just home to the Garlic Festival
anymore. The Gilroy Art and Wine Festival, which made its debut
last fall, is making an annual appearance in the tree-lined park
and the second festival is on its way.
Publicity key leading up to Gilroy’s second annual celebration of local art, wines, beers
Christmas Hill Park isn’t just home to the Garlic Festival anymore. The Gilroy Art and Wine Festival, which made its debut last fall, is making an annual appearance in the tree-lined park and the second festival is on its way.
Organizers of the festival from the Gilroy Community Services Department and the Gilroy Visitor’s Bureau have worked to increase attendance to the event and add more art pieces to the exhibit that will be available for viewing Saturday, Sept. 9 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
“We are not looking so much to expand the festival as to expand the number of people attending,” said Judy Mireles-Janisch, a recreation supervisor for Gilroy.
Last year’s event featured eight local wineries, music and a kids art area.
“It was really neat to see people sitting on the grass and enjoying their wine and food,” Janisch said. “And listening to the music.”
The spotlight of the day, however, shone on at least 90 pieces of artwork completed in various media – some displaying the grape vines and garlic the city is known for. The art hung on trellis-like display boards inside the Christmas Hill Park Gazebo.
Last year marked the first year the city hosted an art and wine festival, although the city has held an annual art exhibit for 25 years.
“We sold 13 pieces of art and that is an absolute record,” said Cathy Mirelez, a supervisor with the Community Service Department.
Gilroy resident Luis Franco is one artist who is looking forward to the local art show.
“I’m ready,” he said, a few weeks before the event. “I have my two pictures framed and titled.”
Franco has been drawn to art for as long as he can remember and said he studied it at San Jose City College, earning an associates degree in art. He has used a variety of media from pencils, charcoal, even coffee grinds before settling on his current favorite – color film photography.
“If you see a beautiful tree, I see it, too,” he said. “But I get close to the tree and take a photo of the bark. It becomes an abstraction. I find details other people don’t see.”
For Franco, the art show is not about winning an award or selling his pieces, but about sharing his vision.
“My intention is to share what I see,” he said.
The change of venue and the addition of a wine tasting to the annual art exhibit increased the number of attendees last year.
“More people attended the exhibit in that one day than we had in the four-day run in past years,” Mirelez said.
The exhibit is open to artists living in the Gavilan District, which includes Gilroy, Morgan Hill, San Martin, Hollister and San Juan Bautista. Submissions for the festival are still being accepted and will be collected Sept. 5 at the Wiley House, for interested artists. Artists can submit up to four pieces, with a maximum of two pieces in any category.
In addition to highlighting local artistic talent, the festival shows off the talents of local winemakers as well as one brewery. So far, eight wineries have signed on to serve at the festival, including Kirgin Cellars, Hecker Pass Winery, Fortino Winery and Solis Winery. While admission to the festival is free, attendees can purchase wine glasses, tickets for wine tasting and food from vendors.
Farmhouse Brewing Company will also be selling tastes of ales, porters and pilsners from their local artisan microbrewery, which opened in Gilroy in 2005.
As the second annual event approaches, one of the focuses this year has been to increase publicity of the event – a task taken on by the Gilroy Visitor’s Bureau.
“We hope to have a larger turn out of attendance,” said Jane Howard, of the Visitor’s Bureau. “The large festivals like Mountain View’s or Los Altos’, those have been around for a number of years and who’s to say we won’t eventually be able to offer the same thing.”
Howard and her co-workers contacted local businesses to sponsor the upcoming event – including Country Clutter, Goldsmith Seed, South Valley National Bank – and others to increase the budget for publicity this year.
“We certainly have some more dollars to work with,” Howard said. “We are doing a lot of outreach this year to get the word out.”
For more information on the Gilroy Art and Wine Festival or to submit artwork, call the Gilroy Community Services Department at 408-846-0460.
