DIDSBURY - Mountain View County's largest festival of its kind returns this weekend. The 9th annual Mountain View Arts Festival goes Sept. 7 and 8 in downtown Didsbury.
The festival, which is put on by the Mountain View Arts Society, features plenty of dancers, storytellers, musicians, handicrafts, painters, potters, carvers and more.
Beverly Zwart, chair of the arts festival, said that the event will be at venues all around and near downtown.
"We'll have venues at the museum, library, Vintage Coffee, Didsbury Saloon, train station, train station parking lot and Elks Hall," said Zwart. "So it's all downtown and in the surrounding area. There will be 11 different artists at work in the train station. There is the community collaborative mural as well as chalk art in the train station parking lot. We'd love to see what people can do."
Zwart said they will also be having an artisan market at the Elks Hall. There will also be plenty of music at the festival.
"There will be live music at Vintage and at the Saloon," she said. "It was very popular last year. It's a really good lineup this year. Also, at Top Note you can go in and play any instrument you want and mess around in there."
New this year at the library is the bad art studio, which is a free space in which participants can let go and just create.
"It's a really fun idea," she said. "It's really uninhibited. The library is also doing a puppet theatre. Didsbury Museum is having an old-tyme country store where they sell old-fashioned candy like peppermint, as well as vegetables. The museum will have the scarecrows on parade again and miniature trains running upstairs and more."
The Elks Hall will also have a gallery showing of art made by local Didsbury High School students.
There will also be a pancake breakfast outside of the Elks Hall on Saturday morning from 8:30 until 10:30 a.m.
The theme of this year's event is What Makes you Smile as the arts festival recognizes the vital importance of mental health in the community.
"Incorporating mental health into art -- it's such good therapy," she said. "It doesn't have to be painting and it doesn't have to be music. It's about the community and collaborating together for well-being. The Bad Art Painting is another therapy place, where people can try something they may not normally do."
Tying in with the theme of mental health, the museum will be hosting a therapy horse on the Sunday of the festival.
Zwart said there will be a showing from the Opening Minds for Art (OMA) project, an art program collaboration with local seniors and high school students, at both the Elks Hall and Didsbury High School.
For more information on the festival check out the website: mountainviewartsfestival.ca.
