Tuscaloosa plans to add $80,000 to 2024 Kentuck funding for festival, other programs

The city of Tuscaloosa's finance committee approved a Kentuck Art Center funding revision request Tuesday, bumping its contribution from $20,000 to $100,000.

This comes about six weeks after the Northport-born center announced it would hold its October Kentuck Festival of the Arts in Tuscaloosa for 2024, the first time the event's been held in the Druid City. The festival's roots extend to a 1971 downtown Northport craft and heritage celebration, which grew into the festival, and then the art center.

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Extra funding will go toward the main event, but also to create quarterly Art Markets at Tuscaloosa's Queen City Park, add to Kentuck's list of Boxes of Joy recipients, and increase programming with the Benjamin Barnes YMCA.

The full council has to approve the $80,000 hike, but given a unanimous vote and vocal enthusiasm at the finance meeting, that shouldn't present an issue. Carly Standridge, chief financial officer for the city, presented the proposal adding " ... if this is amenable, we will also put a budget revision for that on to council next week (Feb. 6)," to pay for the funding contract. The money will come from the city's general fund.

"Welcome to Tuscaloosa, Kentuck; motion approved," said District 3 councilor Norman Crow. District 4 councilor Lee Busby, chairing the committee, added "I think this is a wonderful move for Tuscaloosa and for Kentuck," as councilors applauded. "I think y'all are gonna add to us, and we're gonna add to y'all. Welcome."

Exa Skinner, who took over the Kentuck executive director job Jan. 1, said the city had been amazing to work with. Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox said "We feel the same. This has been a real pleasure."

The request Kentuck made was for heightened programming in Tuscaloosa, Skinner said. Many know the group best for its two-day art, music and more festival, but the year-around center also creates first Thursday Art Nights, third Saturday Art Markets, exhibits, a gift shop, workshops and other outreach. Kentuck also hosts artists' studios on its Northport campus at 503 Main Ave.

With this extra funding, those third Saturday markets will move to Tuscaloosa once per quarter, and be held in conjunction with farmers' markets, housed across Jack Warner Parkway at the River Market. Queen City Park is adjacent to the Tuscaloosa Public Library, and was constructed in 1943 as the Queen City Pool and Bathhouse, designed by famed architect Don Buel Schuyler, a Frank Lloyd Wright apprentice.

After being closed for decades, it was renovated and converted via federal funding to the Mildred Westervelt Warner Transportation Museum, opened in 2011.

The pool was filled in in 2005, leaving the non-functioning Art Deco fountain and pool bleachers intact, facing a grassy expanse that's been used sporadically for events utilizing non-permanent installations, such as the city's holiday ice-skating, the Halloween-themed Monster Makeover event, and night movie screenings.

"We have a great thing with our Art Markets in Northport," Skinner said, a free and family-friendly event not unlike their evening Art Nights, with hands-on crafts and activities, but adding shopping opportunities centered on the work of local artists. They're held 9:30 a.m.-2 p.m. "We'd love to spread that to even more people."

The extra funds will also allow Kentuck to expand work with the Barnes YMCA, where it's been providing art supplies and instruction to children attending camps; and to grow its Boxes of Joy project, bringing art supply kits and additional instruction to economically disadvantaged kids ages 5-12. Boxes of Joy has worked with Northport Housing Authority, Tuscaloosa One Place Extended Day Program at Matthews Elementary and the Tuscaloosa Juvenile Detention Center. For 2024, Boxes of Joy will extend to the Tuscaloosa Housing Authority.

Kentuck is still a few weeks away from naming its exact Tuscaloosa site for the Oct. 19-20, 2024 festival, the 53rd, she said.

In December, two possibilities were being considered: Snow Hinton Park, a 40-acre site at the junction of Hargrove Road and McFarland Boulevard; and Parker-Haun Park, completed and opened in September 2022.

Snow Hinton is currently undergoing $10.2 million in renovations, adding better lighting and camera systems, expanded parking and vehicle access, and a central plaza and walking path. Parker-Haun would be more of a squeeze at just 4 acres — Kentuck Park, where the festivals have been for five decades, is about 7 acres — but its built-in stage, modern lighting and design, and prominent downtown location may play in its favor.

Kentuck made the decision to relocate the festival for 2024 following budget and other disagreements with the city of Northport.

Reach Mark Hughes Cobb at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Kentuck Art Center to receive funding boost from city of Tuscaloosa