A family-friendly event returns—and this time for a milestone celebration. For its 10th year, Chesapeake Art Center’s Arts in the Park drew local community members, art lovers and organizations for a day of fun from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 5.
The festival was born in 2014 out of a desire to bring arts to the community in a safe, accessible way. What started with a few hundred people has grown to more than 1,000 visitors anticipated this year, and the footprint of the festival now stretches from the Chesapeake Art Center’s Hammonds Lane Theatre into the Brooklyn Park Middle School parking lot.
This year’s lineup included 70+ vendors, a bigger stage for multi-piece musicians and theatrics, a food truck alley, an artisan marketplace, giveaways and prizes and an expansion of free art activities for kids and adults of all ages and skill levels.
“This year, our [10th] annual Arts in the Park is shaping up to be our biggest, most exciting event to date. We hope to bring even more arts exposure to our ever growing creative community, including having a few surprises up our sleeve,” the arts center notes in this year’s brochure.
Family fun- and education-based vendors such as Echoes of Nature—a nonprofit working with animal ambassadors for environmental education programs—and the Brooklyn Park branch of Anne Arundel County Public Library were there.
And kids repped face paint and glitter tattoos from Swede Art throughout the day at this rain-or-shine event. Proceeds benefited the art center’s annual programming, which in 2024 included a new ceramics studio and an expanded free science, technology, engineering, art and math (STEAM) program.
