The city’s most family-friendly art fair is back on East Danforth this weekend, as the Danforth East Community Association presents the seventh annual Danforth East Art Fair.
Painters, potters, photographers, jewellers, and all other manner of artists and craftspeople will be on hand for two days selling their creations at East Lynn Park. This year there are 65 vendors – double the amount of the first year’s fair – along with a youth booth and three food vendors on site.
Melanie Ramsay, in her fourth year as one of half a dozen volunteer organizers, said DEAF has a distinctly local atmosphere, with activities for children planned all weekend, and two thirds of the artists living in the area.
“It started out as an art event, and it’s become a family event,” she said. “We’re not like Queen West [Art Crawl], where people come from as far away as Montreal. We’re trying to support our artists. We have a very creative neighbourhood.”
A new addition this year is the youth booth, which offers free space for local young creators to try their hand at selling their creations.
“This is our first year doing it,” said Ramsay. “It gives them an opportunity to show and to sell, but also to learn the practicality of it.”
About a third of the vendors are attending for the first time, while the rest have shown their work in previous years.
“There’s always a debate between fresh blood and honouring those who’ve been with us in the past,” she said.
The show runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 13 and 14, at East Lynn Park, on Danforth Avenue just west of Woodbine. DEAF will offer full programming for children during show hours, as well as live music from local musicians.
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