Bristol art fest to span full week

Author: Mary Lane

The Five Town Massive, produced by Nine37 Productions and located each year in Bristol, Vt. will be held Dec. 26-30 and feature "multi-media events throughout the week," as the festival's official Web site advertises. This self-titled interdisciplinary arts extravaganza is open to all members of the community and beyond for interested persons of all ages and artistic backgrounds.

The festival, conceived in 1999 by a group of multi-talented artistic friends, is in its ninth year, or "9th Volume." The purpose of the festival is to expose interested persons to as many artistic viewpoints as possible, coming from extremely and relatively new, fresh artists who otherwise would not be able to display their work to the general public.

"The current state of the culture in the United States makes it very hard for creators who are not already established to gain any form of audience for their work," Five Town Massive's MySpace page cites from its 2006 Program Introduction. "There exists a serious gap between what is being made and what is being seen, due to both the demands of a corporate marketplace deciding the content and worth of creative work, and an art world that is increasingly exclusive."

The Five Town Massive puts forth the idea that the purpose of art is to introduce questions and challenge ideas, yet "a person must wonder how those questions can enter the dialogue of the culture at large if they cannot afford the entry fee."

"Media creators," as Nine37 Productions dubs those who feature works at the festival, are in the process of screening film, music and gallery media works for the festival.

The applications for works include minimal guidelines, in order to maximize the creativity of individual submissions. "We are not here to be critics, simply to select a sampling of work and present it to the public," Nine37 Productions states.

Submissions for both the art and film categories are due by Nov. 30 and the schedule for the week-long festival will be posted on the Web site in the coming weeks.