The Y-Bridge Arts Festival Returns to Zanesville this Summer

Submitted by WHIZ Intern Maddie Luebkert

Zanesville, OH- When Zanesville local Allison Weeks picked up a paintbrush for the first time, she did not anticipate discovering a local community of artists so welcoming of her and her new skills.

Now, as the Vice President of the Artist Colony of Zanesville, Weeks will bring the art community together to celebrate the 15th Annual Y-Bridge Arts Festival. The Annual festival will take place on the lawn of Zane State College. The two-day celebration features all kinds of work from 60 different artists such as paintings, stained glass, leather and pottery, and will also include live music from local bands Spelchek and Tongo Rad.  

“We’ll have some live artists doing demonstrations for aboriginal dot painting, Mexican tent art and these really cool Japanese fish kites, so that will be happening there,” Weeks said. “Most of the artists are local but we have people coming in from all over the place that you might not get to see except this one time a year. So, really supporting those local artists is huge for us.”

The winners of the ArtCoz Linda Regula scholarship will also be announced during the festival ribbon cutting ceremony at 5:30 p.m. on August 1.

“We award the Linda Regula Legacy Scholarship, and we do it in conjunction with the You Will Rise Project,” Executive Committee member Erin Cole said. “It is for a high school senior, from Muskingum County, who is going on to college to study the arts. We’ve been doing it for several years, but it’s a great project and so we have our winner, and we have a runner-up winner and they’re both coming.”

To see art from local artists like Weeks, visit the Y-Bridge Arts Festival. The celebration will kick off at 2 p.m. on Friday, August 1 and continue into Saturday, August 2.