With more than 100 local artists and a dozen wineries in participation, the 14thannual Scotts Valley Art and Wine Festival brought the Scotts Valley community together to listen to local bands, browse through masterpieces, try wine, and watch a magic show led by none other than Ronald McDonald.
The festival, held at Skypark, also featured multiple food venues, including BBQ, fresh smoothies, and made-to-order crepes. Attendees lounged on hay bales, sipping wine and watching the continuous stream of families, couples, and friends wander from booth to booth.
Local artist Suzanne Detrick of “Eye Kandee,” whose fine-crafted glasses and associated accessories made their debut at the Festival on Saturday, Aug. 10, was “pleasantly surprised by the people and the environment, the way it (was) set up.” Detrick reported numerous sales.
“Word-of-mouth told me this was the show to come to and participate in, so I did, and I’m very happy about it,” she said.
Mikael Wargin, a wine-maker from Soquel, was also fairly new to the event.
“We’ve actually attended this festival in the past,” he said, “but now we have a winery, we thought we’d work at it. (My favorite part) is really the people that come by — very happy people, very nice families, dogs. Everyone has a really great time.”
Then, Wargin grinned and whispered, “We took second place for booth decoration, so we have to beat Hallcrest (Vineyards) next year.”
Hallcrest’s winning booth, set toward the front of the park, was covered in white-and-gold bows, with a back of bamboo and a blue-and-yellow banner.
“We’ve done (the festival) for three years, and we do a different design every year,” said Jayme Cooper, who decorated the booth. “I decided it would be fun to do something tropical (this year).”
“(Last) year we did more of an Italian theme, with the chefs and a black-and-white-and-red kind of theme, more wine-related. This year’s design took me about four, five hours.”
Veterans of the festival have been attending for more than a decade.
“This is my 12th year,” said Sharon Medler, an artist based in Santa Cruz who specializes in painting roosters.
“I go to the County Fair every year,” said, who was the festival’s featured artist in 2011. “I just love looking at the roosters. So I thought, I’ve got to paint these guys! So then it snowballed.”
Medler looked around her booth at the 20-some pieces, each bird set against a rich red background.
“I love painting a lot of the local scenes,” she said.
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