By Lori Bledsoe
The Alpine Sun

     ALPINE — Stephanie Wells and Theresa King choreographed the Second Annual Alpine Art Festival held last weekend Sept. 30 in the Alpine Community Center and Park. The festival attracted local artists, photographers, musicians, poets, sky hunters, dancers, and even a group of Karate students from the Santee Dojo. Alpine turned out to see a lot happen throughout the day.
     There was a silent auction, musical entertainment, face painting, an art contest for contributed student art, a dedication of the new community mural, and so much more. Vendors and artists had booths set up, selling wares, and masterpieces. Some of these original pieces were painted in oils, acrylics and watercolors. There were also high-end nature photography, sculptures, metal art, and bead art. Other pieces were delicately and precisely arranged using natural media such as one artist’s beautiful arrangements of butterfly wings, and another artist’s arrangements of dried leaves, flowers and even bark.
     Stephanie Wells, the president of The Southern California Center for Youth, Nature, & The Arts, Inc. said she wants to do Art Festivals for as long as she can.
     “We just decided to do this on a shoestring,” she said about beginning the organization. This organization’s mission is to reinstate the connection between nature, the arts, and human development. Its end goal is to create an Alpine Nature and Art Center, which would be a home to art and music festivals along with art and gardening classes. Also, they would like to offer development opportunities to local children.
     Wells fells that Alpine was so rich in art, but our community needed an outlet to display and take part. Wells holds a part time position at Creekside Early Learning Center, working in the library, and is also the Art Docent for Boulder Oaks Elementary. She said she loves, and has always loved art.
     Wells gave the credit for finding the vendors and performers to Theresa King the Vice President and Operations Director of the Alpine Community Center. Wells said that without King’s untiring efforts to organize entertainment and booth participants, this event would not be possible.
     This was truly a group effort. When the public arrived to enjoy the festivities, the community center was full of stations presenting original artworks for sale by the artists themselves. When perusing through and following the path down into the park area, one found floral arrangements, Indian pottery, jewelry, and gem artists. Also in the center of the park was art on display, created by Alpine children, collected from the schools and arranged by grade. In the back of the park, under the huge oak trees, the new mural was proudly displayed, bringing a definite flare to the community’s gathering area.
     The festival was a great success. Many came from Alpine, but there were also people enjoying the festival that traveled in from Pine Valley and Campo.