As Pendleton County prepares to host the annual
Kentucky Wool Festival in early October, the City of Falmouth is rolling out the red carpet for the Wool Festival’s estimated 35,000 attendees and locals alike with the
Ewe-Nique Art Walk, opening on Saturday, September 24.
The Ewe-Nique Art Walk is a collaboration between artists and artisans, local musicians and food vendors that pays homage to sheep — a beloved local icon — and offers a fun community event in preparation for the Wool Festival.
The art walk and street festival is a new event for the City of Falmouth and is made possible by a small
myNKY Nano Grant funded by Skyward, the organization charged with implementing the strategic myNKY plan for regional growth. Nano Grants are administered through a partnership with Covington’s
Center for Great Neighborhoods to fund creative, community-building projects.
Skyward consultant for community vibrancy, Tara Johnson, says that Pendleton County was chosen as one of three pilot locations for the program in which individuals applied for grants of up to $250 per project. The Ewe-Nique Art Walk was a chosen recipient because of its creative nod to the successful brand of the Kentucky Wool Festival, one of the region’s preeminent fall festivals.
Regional culture shines at KY Wool Fest
The Kentucky Wool Festival has been in existence for 34 years and is one of Greater Cincinnati’s annual fall traditions. Although sheep and shearing are front and center, the event is a celebration of regional history and culture, arts, agriculture and the onset of the fall season. It started in downtown Falmouth but moved about 20 years ago to its current location next to Kincaid Lake State Park.
The festival, which takes place annually the first weekend in October, features live animals and petting areas, more than a hundred arts arts and craft booths, live bluegrass music, sheep-shearing demonstrations, local farm products, food vendors and historical reenactments.
“From our perspective,” Johnson explains, “the Wool Festival is one of those great long-standing community traditions that brings people together while celebrating the local agriculture, arts and culture. Adding the art walk is a local effort to build on the Wool Festival's popularity while celebrating arts and culture in historic downtown Falmouth.”
Alex Carson is a local artist and organizer of the Ewe-Nique Art Walk. A lifetime Pendleton County resident, Carson has volunteered for several years with the
Pendleton County Tourism Council as their community events chairperson. He has attended the Kentucky Wool Festival nearly every year of his life and says an event like the art walk was the perfect addition to this year’s fall festival season.
“With the opportunity to receive funds from the Nano Grant project, we wanted to marry the downtown Falmouth beautification efforts with the county’s largest event-based tourism attraction, the Kentucky Wool Festival.”
Celebrating the ‘fabric of Pendleton County’
On its opening night, the Ewe-Nique Art Walk will feature a variety of work by local Pendleton County artists such as Jason Mann and Brook Brooks. The main focal point will be sheep-inspired art installations decorating Falmouth’s storefront windows.
“Public art installations — the commissioned sheep — will be unveiled in the vacant storefront windows here at the beginning of the event for all to enjoy,” said Carson. “Each artist or organization who sponsored a sheep will be set up, along with other arts-inspired vendors from the community.”
Supporting organizations such as
Kincaid Regional Theatre, Northern Elementary Art & Music Classes,
The Training Ground and
Pendleton County Extension Homemakers will also feature sheep designs that highlight the “fabric of Pendleton County.”
The Ewe-Nique art walk is not an official Wool Festival event, but the installations unveiled during the September 24 opening will stay open through the next few weeks and during the Wool Festival in early October.
The Ewe-Nique Art Walk will take place 6-10 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 24 in downtown Falmouth.
Visit the Kentucky Wool Festival at 48 Concord Caddo Road in Falmouth on Oct. 7-9. The festival runs 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $5 per day and free for children under 5. Three-day passes are available.
A free shuttle service to the festival grounds is available from Pendleton County High School and also at the Pendleton County Courthouse parking lot in downtown Falmouth, where the storefront installations from the Ewe-Nique Art Walk will be on display.
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