Fine Art Festival coming to Sharon

The Voice of Art’s (TVOA) Fine Art Festival will be held on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 21 and 22 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the Sharon town green. It is free and open to the public.

The festival features both fine art and functional art including paintings, mixed media, photography, glass, wood works, metal, fiber art, jewelry, and more with artists from across the northeastern states. There is also a raffle that supports The Voice of Art’s Fine Art Festival and local businesses.

TVOA is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) visual art organization founded in 2017 dedicated to creating art experiences that enrich the lives of residents throughout the state of Connecticut. Their current vision is “to provide meaningful integration of arts and cultural community-building activities for residents of the Litchfield community.”

TVOA is expanding its educational and health-related studio art program for residents of the Litchfield community and aims to reach a wider and diverse audience through such activities as classes, workshops, and outreach programs for community, all with the goal of inspiring and educating.

The organization also aims to provide opportunities for new viewers to experience high-level artworks by emerging and established artists through accessible exhibitions of their work, both in TVOA’s virtual gallery and in venues provided by multiple business communities.

About the process of selecting artists, VOA director Hannah Jung stated, “We have a Jury committee that reviews submitted online applications which include images of four original artworks. We judge and select artists based on their artistic merit and excellence of artwork. Artists should be at least 18 years of age and the original creator of the artwork. The Fine Art Festival is open to visitors of all ages. As such, we ask that displayed artwork be suitable for viewing by all ages. “

The Fine Art Festival coming up in late September differs slightly from the Litchfield Art Festival which took place in May. Jung explained, “We changed the name from ‘Litchfield’ to ‘TVOA’s Fine Art Festival’ to avoid any confusion caused by ‘Litchfield’ as most people assume the town, not the county. In terms of the quality or characteristics of the show, these two are the same show. We simply offer two shows in spring and fall so that the community has more chances to experience fine art events and meet various artists. Some artists are returning, and some are new participants.”

“At every event, we are pleased to hear from our attendees that our show displays high-quality fine artwork - mainly paintings and mixed media rather than crafts - presented by the artists from multiple states in the northeast. Our festival attendees very much appreciate the quality and the uniqueness of our show,” Jung added.