Festival celebrates 15th anniversary

It’s a special celebration that has been 15 years in the making, and it happens in just a few days.

The landmark 15th anniversary of the cultural festival called Night of Artists takes place in Edmonton this weekend and it promises to be a gala cultural extravaganza the likes of which are rarely seen in the region. There will be a fashion show and live music to delight the audience but it’s the live painting performance by Lewis Lavoie and the art show featuring more than 500 original artworks by local artists that will bring the crowds in and keep them there.

“It’s the big one. We’ve got lots going on all around it,” said an ebullient Phil Alain, sounding enthusiastic albeit slightly out of breath.

Night of Artists, or NOA as Alain occasionally calls it, is the arts festival that could. What started off as a modest group gathering in the St. Albert Community Hall has now expanded and grown beyond even Alain’s grand imagination. In the last 15 years, NOA has held more than 150 arts events and helped establish and further the careers of hundreds of artists, musicians, fashion designers and more across the country.

To mark the occasion, Alain and his friends are throwing a party that starts on Friday and ends on Saturday. One of those friends is Lewis Lavoie, Alain’s business associate through Mural Mosaic. That organization regularly creates large-scale artworks made up of many smaller paintings. In addition to Lavoie conducting his trademark live art performance during the event, NOA will also unveil a superhero mural mosaic as a benefit for the Kids with Cancer Society. The mosaic was created out of 288 smaller paintings done by professional artists, corporations and local media celebrities.

Pulse, an Edmonton-based music group, will accompany Lavoie, something that Alain anticipates will make for quite a spectacle in its own right.

“It’s going to be a really lively performance as Lewis dances away and paints with them. They’re playing both nights so that should be really, really awesome to see. It’s shaping up to be a great celebration.”

The evening will also feature the release of the seventh and newest annual edition of the Night of Artists publication, called NOA Magazine. This art and music periodical helps to give added profile to various visual artists, musicians and performers within the community as well.