Potters Harry Karn and Suzie Council won “best of show” for their booth at Davidson’s Art on the Green this weekend.

The Davidson community came out in full force this weekend for “Arts on the Green,” annual arts festival on the town green featuring art booths set up by local artists, a gallery crawl, and shows by local performers.

Although the weather was less than ideal Sunday, turnout was still higher than last year, Downtown Davidson manager Kate MacIntyre said. Said MacIntyre, “The feedback we got from artists is that they had a good day and liked the music.”

This year’s music toned down from the rock sounds of last year, which organizers said was designed to be more compatible with a display of visual art.

“The most unusual artist we had this year was a dance group called ‘The Gamut,’ which was really impressive. We had a great group watching, including parents and children,” Ms. MacIntyre said. Also featured were singers Kate Minogue and Kelley Gardner, Billy Jones and other local musicians.

The only part of the weekend’s festivities that the weather seemed to affect was Sunday’s crowd. This year, Ms. MacIntrye said they had planned to have a pottery wheel so that visitors could experience the excitement of the arts festival first-hand, but rain washed out that plan. Instead, the festival offered a non-electric hands-on opportunity for children, by having a table set up with clay so children could do hand molding.

WINNING ARTISTS

For visitors who noticed that the number of artists was drastically fewer than last year, Ms. MacIntyre explained that was because the artists were juried this year; all artists who applied were evaluated, and some were not accepted into the festival.

“It’s about quality this year, not quantity” she said. The number of artists was even smaller on Sunday, when rain scared some away.

Prizes were awarded to the top booths. Potters Suzie Council and Harry Karn shared a booth that won best of show. Wood turner David Kaylor first runner up. And watercolor painter Virginia Quillen (watercolors) was second runner up.

The concept of Art on the Green started with Drew Crawford, of Wooden Stone Gallery, in September of 2005 with about 20 artists, and has grown to its current size, supported by grants by the Arts and Science council. Ms. MacIntyre commented that the festival is “really evolving as an art audience and really evolving as an art community.”