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Festival of the Arts starts Thursday at Kane Family Farm near Tonganoxie

By Shawn Linenberger - | May 11, 2022

Shawn Linenberger

Martika Daniels performs at the Tonganoxie Plein Art Festival on Oct. 2, 2021, in downtown Tonganoxie.

The third annual Tonganoxie Festival of the Arts will be offering art, music, storytelling and more later this week.

The festival, which will be at Kane Family Farm just south of Tonganoxie, runs Thursday through Sunday.

Painting competitions, street vendors, children’s art activities food trucks and live music are some of the things that visitors will find during the four-day festival.

The event kicks off with the plein air painting from 7-10 p.m. on the Kane Family Farm grounds. Visitors can watch painters as they create various works, with the farm landscape as their subjects.

The bluegrass band Gullywasher will perform that first night from 7-10 p.m.

Festival organizer Keyta Kelly said Tuesday that there were 25 plein air competitors signed up, though additional competitors still can sign up in person. The festival also will feature 24 fine art booths.

On Friday, festivities get started with the Children’s Storytelling Festival. Various storytellers and authors will be on hand for the festival, which is recommended for youths 5 and older. TES students in grades K-3 will be bussed to the site for activities. Home-schoolers and other children also are welcome to attend the festival.

Authors and illustrators Alastair Heim and Daniel Miyares, along with storytellers JT Nagle and Joyce Slater will be at the children’s festival.

From 5-7 p.m. Friday, Tonganoxie Arts Council will present a lineup of storytellers: Allen Debey, Keyta Kelly, Rachel Kelly, Alice Nathan, Joyce Slater, Ron Stewart and Rich White.

Big Time Grain Company, which performed at the Tonganoxie Sesquicentennial in 2016 at Gallagher Park is back for the art festival. Nikki White will open for the band at 7 p.m. Friday with music slated until 10 p.m. again that night.

On Saturday, from 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. or potentially later, there will be fine art vendors, live art competitions, street performers and an art gallery. A live glass blowing demonstration will run 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. and the Crossroads Miata Club will have Mazda Miata cars on display 3-10 p.m.

Children’s art activities will be available from 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m., an array food trucks will be parked at Kane Family farm during that same time frame.

Country music performers Sherry Dodson and Jim Denney will perform together from 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m., while blues and bluegrass duo Scotch Hollow are set to perform from 12:30-2 p.m.

Clown Richard Renner will entertain audiences from 2-2:30 p.m., 3-3:30 p.m. and 4-4:30 p.m. and then chidlren’s comedian Dennis Porter will perform for 30 minutes after each of Renner’s performances.

Rusty Laffoon, a band that performs country, rock, blues, Motown, pop and more will perform starting at 7 p.m., with The Suburbans to follow. The Suburbans perform pop, rock, hip-hop, funk, soul, disco and country. Rusty Laffoon also performed at the 2017 Tonganoxie Days festival. Food and drink will be available for purchase each night.

Festivities conclude Sunday with an art gallery 10 a.m.-3 p.m., including an awards ceremony at 12:30 p.m. at Kane Family Farm.