ArtStop Children’s Area at Richardson's biannual Cottonwood Art Festival includes activities ranging from necklace making to canvas painting. (Photo by Sarah Pricer)
Cottonwood Art Festival is a fun, family event, and as I’ve previously written, we go as much for the food as we do for the art. There’s another aspect worth mentioning though, the main reason the art fest has become a biannual tradition for our family.
Enter ArtStop Children’s Area, a fenced-off section of the park dedicated to encouraging the artistic whims of the younger set. According to Cottonwood Art Festival’s website, “ArtStop creates a hands-on world of art with life-sized paint brushes and dozens of activities irresistible to any child.” Call me a cynic, but in my mind, “irresistible to any child” reads “we’re offering expensive and useless junk for which your children will inevitably beg.” Fear not, wary parents. ArtStop for kids is fantastic, as long as you have time to suffer the lines.
The awesome: It’s affordable. Cost is $1 per a ticket, and projects range from two to four tickets per craft. There are free activities like chalkboards and necklace making for the little ones to enjoy, and the ticketed projects are really neat.
Kids can also create pottery on real pottery wheels at ArtStop. (Photo by Sarah Pricer)
While some of the activities (hat making and tile painting) are geared toward the younger set, there are also cool things designed to appeal to the older kids, too. These include creating pottery on real pottery wheels, canvas painting, and the ever-popular “fancy fun fingers,” a kid-friendly way of saying “we’ll make you stand in line for an hour and a half in order to alternately stick your hand in ice water and hot wax.” Kiddos go nuts for this stuff, and it’s pretty cool to have your little one’s hands frozen in time. The entrance is between the restrooms (y’all know why this is a plus — when kids gotta go, they gotta go!), and the music area. This is mostly a good thing, depending on your music preferences. The scheduled artists are listed online, so you can plan your visit to ArtStop accordingly.
The less-awesome: Have I mentioned the lines? They’re not for the faint — or the disgruntled — of heart. Maybe going early can help ensure shorter wait times, but even with just the two kids, “early” really isn’t in our repertoire, so I can’t speak to that tactic.
That said (because I’m an optimist), the good thing about the wait time is that it provides ample opportunity to make new friends. For example, my husband and two other dads bonded over college football, my husband relaying plays as quickly as ESPN.com updated its mobile site. My daughter also made a friend in the line, and so strong was their bond by the time it was their turn, they had made it to “BFF status” and decided to do their “fun fingers” linked together. In fact, they made two fun fingers wax creations, so each could take one home. Our apologies to the 20 people waiting in line behind us. We did not know that a) this was their plan, or b) it would take 17 tries to make it work without breaking.
Even if ArtStop is the only stop you get to make at Cottonwood Art Festival, it’s certainly a worthy one. We might not get to see much of the rest of the festival, but we always end up with some beautiful, original, handmade art, which is kind of the point, right? And if you really can’t handle the long lines waiting for mini-genius to occur, as one disgruntled dad grudgingly admitted with a sweeping toast, “at least it’s close to the beer.”
Sarah Pricer grew up in the Dallas area and spent time in the Marine Corps after high school. She earned a BA in political science and minor in human rights from Southern Methodist University. Though she’s new to blogging, she has always enjoyed writing.