Clinton’s ‘Mosaic’ weekend
Festival brings busy crowd to downtown area
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Visitors crowded the street and sidewalks during Saturday’s Mosaic art festival on Market Street in downtown Clinton. - G. Chambers Williams III
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This painting from Clinton Middle School was one of the pieces of student art work on display in store windows on Market Street during Saturday’s Mosaic art festival. - G. Chambers Williams III
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Scarlet Pardue, center, and Brooke Riley, right, wait on two customers at the Clinton High School Culinary Arts bake sale booth on Market Street during last Saturday’s Mosaic street festival. - G. Chambers Williams III
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Working in a crafts booth during Saturday’s Mosaic festival in downtown Clinton were, from left: Carly Whitson and Cooper Horton of Norris Middle School, who made jewelry to sell; and Emerson Irwin and Korey Horton, selling wooden cutting boards. - G. Chambers Williams III
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Aiden McNeilly, a first-grader at Norris Elementary School, gets his hand painted during the Mosaic festival on Saturday. He is the son of Krista and Dan McNeilly. - G. Chambers Williams III
For the first time since the pandemic struck in March 2020, Clinton blocked off Market Street last Saturday and a crowd gathered for the downtown area’s “Mosaic” street art festival.
There were street vendors, food trucks, food booths, face-painting and other activities not seen since before the shutdown, and people were clearly enjoying being out on the street again.
The event was centered around artwork created by students in 19 Anderson County schools that was on display in the windows of shops on Market Street.
Merchants hosted the event, decorated their stores and opened their doors to the crowds, who held up pretty well until rain finally moved in around midday.
The event was part of the first Anderson County Art Trail, which also included special events and live performances during the “Mosaic” event all day Saturday in the downtown area.
Students’ art was on display and available for sale, said Art Trail coordinator Alison Greenhouse, who teaches art at Norris and Fairview elementary schools.
The art was provided by students from kindergarten through 12th grade, and each school also contributed a “collaborative” three-by-three-foot piece of art designed to represent the work of all the art students in the participating schools, Greenhouse said.
Sixteen Anderson County Schools and the three Clinton elementary schools signed up to participate, and the downtown merchants were looking forward to hosting the event, Katherine Birkbeck, owner of the Spindle Tree on Market Street, said in earlier announcements about the special event.