PITTSBORO – Gilda McDaniel retains video games like “Mailbox Insanity” and “Fowl Shot” in her storage year-round. Sprinkled subsequent to the video games are dozens of painted wood animals and beanbag chairs of all shapes and colours.

Though she could sound like one thing of a hamster, her storage is stocked in preparation for a single day every year: ClydeFest.

“At the present time stays with me all 12 months,” McDaniel stated. “It is so particular for thus many causes.”

McDaniel, who additionally serves as board chair of the Chatham Arts Council, has helped with the native arts pageant for households for greater than 20 years, and her favourite day of the 12 months is quick approaching. The occasion, which this 12 months will likely be on Saturday 22 April, combines her three favourite issues: her pricey buddy Clyde Jones – the pageant’s namesake – the Chatham Arts Council and Chatham County.

“The occasion follows the inspiration of Clyde, whose motto was all the time, ‘It is concerning the children,'” McDaniel stated.

Jones, she added, was the type of old school man who stated we must always return to the “horse-and-buggy days.” He longed for a easy outside life and needed kids to expertise the fun of getting messy whereas making artwork. It was on this spirit that ClydeFest was born all these years in the past.

The occasion initially began when Jones approached the Chatham Arts Council and pushed for a pageant for youngsters within the Bynum space. Since then, it has developed into a singular occasion for the county and the state. The CAC brings in performers, artists and nonprofits from as far-off as Georgia to hitch within the festivities.

“Clyde is probably the most open, type and beneficiant individual,” stated McDaniel, who has been a detailed buddy of Jones’ for a few years. “That is actually the character of this occasion, it comes from the center right through.”

Jones just lately celebrated her 86th birthday on April 1 and plans to attend this 12 months’s occasion to cap off her month of festivities.

New location, similar ardour

This 12 months, the twenty first annual ClydeFest strikes from its longtime house of the Bynum ballpark and to Pittsboro’s Chatham County Agriculture & Convention Middle.

The change in location was made to enhance accessibility to the occasion, in accordance with Cheryl Chamblee, CAC’s creative director. She stated rising attendance on the pageant meant extra parking was wanted than Bynum may accommodate. The brand new location can also be extra centralized for extra Chatham residents, that means extra locals can expertise the humanities pageant.

Final 12 months the occasion had greater than 2,000 members, and the organizers anticipate extra this 12 months with the larger venue.

“Being at Bynum Ballpark all these years has been tremendous magical,” Chamblee stated. “And we’re extremely grateful to the Bynum group as a result of it is a huge deal for them to have so many individuals of their group on one weekend.”

However as a lot love and magic as that ballpark holds, Chamblee stated it simply would not maintain the variety of folks — or parking areas — obligatory for an occasion as huge as ClydeFest.

Accessible artwork

Whereas navigating the logistics of the brand new location hasn’t been straightforward, Chamblee stated she thinks it should repay as a result of the occasion will likely be accessible to extra folks.

Offering elevated entry and lowering potential limitations to the humanities has been a long-standing objective of the CAC. Final 12 months’s occasion marked the primary time that ClydeFest was free for all attendees, which continues this 12 months.

One of many causes the occasion may be open to everyone seems to be due to sponsors like The Jester Group at Baird, a household wealth administration agency in Chapel Hill. The corporate has been the naming sponsor of the pageant for the previous 4 years. Tracie Legg, who works on the Jester Group, has been volunteering at ClydeFest along with her household for a number of years. She stated she finds the occasion beneficial due to the way in which it engages all generations.

“My children, who’re grown now, nonetheless have their painted creatures on the shelf,” she stated. “We all know how necessary artwork may be, and this occasion actually embodies every part you suppose children ought to be doing today.”

The brand new location additionally presents alternatives for improvements for the two-decade-old pageant, together with new performers equivalent to a youth sitar ensemble, a West African drum circle and a efficiency by the Jordan-Matthews Excessive Faculty a cappella group Golden Tones.

The pageant may even characteristic artists who’ve change into ClydeFest staples, such because the Bouncing Bulldogs leap rope crew and bluegrass duo Carolina Lightnin’. Alice Zincone, who performs standup bass for the duo, says the group has been taking part in the pageant for greater than a decade.

“We try to have a way of child-like enjoyment in our music,” Zincone stated. “I feel that is what Clyde impressed us and what he is giving to households all through the county with this occasion.”

Broad traces

The magic of ClydeFest additionally suits into the CAC’s wider work. The Council goals to foster a ardour for the humanities amongst all residents of the county by intentional arts funding and to teach kids by the humanities.

ClydeFest suits each of those missions as a result of it is a one-day, family-oriented occasion the place the entire level is to do issues collectively. The occasion will not be about having correct supplies, or one of the best pens at school, it’s about artwork with supplies which are shut at hand.

“We’ve got a imaginative and prescient on the Chatham Arts Council the place each member of the Chatham group could have entry to the humanities,” Chamblee stated. “At a time when psychological well being for youngsters and psychological well being for adults is admittedly challenged, the humanities could be a huge a part of the answer there.”

The info assist Chamblee’s speculation. Based on a 2016 Drexel College examine, making artwork for a minimum of 45 minutes, particularly in group settings, considerably reduces the degrees of the stress hormone cortisol in members.

ClydeFest presents the chance to just do that – make artwork with different folks.

“This can be a one-day intervention,” Chamblee stated. “It is group constructing, it is place-making, it is tremendous distinctive, and there is nothing else prefer it.”

Volunteers and members within the occasion agree with Chamblee’s reward. Debbie Bousquet has been volunteering with the occasion since 2003. She comes yearly as a result of ClydeFest is what she calls “a particular, magical pageant.”

“The day simply embodies Clyde Jones,” Bousquet stated. “He feels very passionately that that is for ‘the younger,’ as he would say, and I feel everybody who volunteers, participates and performs lives as much as that mannequin.”

In all, the occasion takes greater than 200 volunteers to finish. Bousquet, who has been volunteer coordinator for this 12 months’s occasion, stated setup for the Saturday occasion begins the Thursday earlier than with greater than 150 folks organising tents, tables, artwork provides and vendor stations. The day of the occasion has greater than 60 volunteers from a bunch of native organizations alternating three-hour shifts starting at 7:30 with subject setup and ends with takedown, which often ends round

“You see children who have been little children 20 years in the past who at the moment are coming again to volunteer,” Bousquet stated. “That custom of being one thing that households wish to proceed to be concerned with is admittedly cool.”

Reporter Ben Rappaport may be reached at brappaport@chathamnr.com or on Twitter @b_rappaport