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A small group of artists from the nonprofit group formed in the late 1960s Waccamaw Arts and Crafts Guild created Art in the Park about 1972 in Chapin Park with art hung from trees and leaning against cars. Chapin Park is located at 1400 N. Kings Hwy. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina where we have our shows in April, June and November from 10am to 4pm. In the spring of 2010 we had our first Art in the Park at Valor Park, located at 1120 Farrow Parkway, Market Common, and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. We did not know how it would go over so we invited all the jewelry artists we had been turning away. We had been turning away a lot of jewelers. It was fabulous. They all got along well and it was well attended. A typical Art in the Park will feature 40 artists. Obviously we will have a lot of North, South Carolina artists and Georgia Artists but we also have them coming from as far as California, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, and Pennsylvania with about 20 local artists presenting their works. Featured art will include paintings, woodworking, photography, jewelry, fabric, glass, metal, pottery and stone. We do not have any resale in our show. It might surprise you to know we turn away a lot of musicians, authors, food products and bath and body artisans. We are old fashioned art guild trying to keep it to the typical two and three dimensional art. Over the years we have enjoyed the traffic on 17 business in Myrtle Beach. Once it was a major traffic path up and down the east coast. Since 1972 we have seen 17 bypass and Hwy 31. These have taken traffic from our show. Now we have added an additional venue in the new city development Market Commons in Myrtle Beach. Some say it is still difficult to find and does not have a great traffic pattern. But it is growing each year. The artists like it because you can always see more houses going up and that means more walls to decorate, etc. Myrtle Beach is becoming a more exciting resort. The chamber is advertising more and we have having more people arrive by plane and driving in. Social media is helping there and in turn helping us. Social media is helping our art show as each artist can use their profiles to invite them to our show and that 40 plus artist multiple will build with our six shows a year should be very high in a year or two. These kinds of shows are indeed rare. We don’t actually solicit our artists and many just find their shows by word of mouth. The customers find the shows by reputation. If you keep doing the same thing with just small tweaks, you can be known for it and it will be good. Our show is run by artists, this one a nonprofit. We have people contact us year after year for our dates from out of town so they can plan their trips, if they are an attendee or artists.
No admission charge. Child and pet friendly!
Contact JoAnne Utterback: 843-446-3830.
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