{"id":25400,"date":"2024-10-11T12:08:18","date_gmt":"2024-10-11T18:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bluff-arts-festival-hosts-music-art-and-more-in-desert\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:16:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:16:36","slug":"bluff-arts-festival-hosts-music-art-and-more-in-desert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bluff-arts-festival-hosts-music-art-and-more-in-desert\/","title":{"rendered":"Bluff Arts Festival hosts music, art and more in desert"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The Bluff Arts Festival Logo. (Courtesy Anne Brown)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Bluff Arts Festival is celebrating its 20th year of endorsing arts and culture in the Four Corners at its weekend-long festival.<\/p>\n

It kicks off Thursday, Oct. 17 and will wrap up Sunday, Oct. 20.<\/p>\n

The Bluff Community Foundation is the nonprofit that makes it happen, with the intention of bringing the community together; especially those who live in Bluff and on the neighboring Navajo Nation, said Anne Brown, a volunteer at the festival.<\/p>\n

Traditionally, Thursday evening starts with storytelling beside the San Juan River.<\/p>\n

Each year, the desert writer who won the annual $5,000 award from the Ellen Maloy Fund starts with sharing something they\u2019ve written. From there, people share their personal poems and stories in an open mic style.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of those things that lasts all night,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n

But in June this year, Bluff lost a lot of its shoreline along the river during flash floods. What\u2019s more, the winner of this year\u2019s award is living in North Carolina, and they\u2019re unable to make it because of the devastation of Hurricane Helene.<\/p>\n

And so the kickoff might look a little different from years past, but the weekend will still begin with storytelling on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at the Recapture Lodge.<\/p>\n

On Friday, from morning into the afternoon, a smorgasbord of workshops \u2013 things like creative writing with award winning writers, basket weaving, jewelry making, painting \u2013 will be available to the public at a variety of prices.<\/p>\n

From 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. that day, people can partake in an art walk and wander from individual studios to trading posts to galleries, admiring art from Four Corners artists.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy favorite part is the film festival,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s free and outdoors, on a big, drive-in style movie screen. People can bring a chair or watch from their car, Brown said. It begins Friday night at 6:30 p.m. at the Bluff Community Center.<\/p>\n

All seven of the movies concern the Four Corners area in one way or another, whether it be about the area, or created by a local filmmaker or writer.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnjoy a fabulous evening of film,\u201d said Brown. \u201cThere\u2019s quite a variety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Right before the film, all the volunteers from throughout the years will be recognized in light of the 20 year mark.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s like half the town,\u201d Brown said with a laugh.<\/p>\n

The artist market is Saturday, and over 30 vendors will be there selling their pieces from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. That morning there\u2019s more workshops, and later that night at 6:30 p.m., people can enjoy live music at the community center.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, the last day of the festival, there will be two workshops in the morning, both beginning at 9 a.m.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019ll wrap up with book readings: Scott Graham will read at 10:30 a.m., and Pam Houston will read at 2 p.m., joined by The Monvales, a singing and songwriting duo.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so many activities, and they\u2019re all outside,\u201d said Brown. \u201cIt\u2019ll be a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information, check out their website, bluffartsfestival.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Corners artists and is right around the corner<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29,121],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-utah"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25400"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78918,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25400\/revisions\/78918"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25400"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}