Vestival offers family fun

By Pete Gawda

South Knoxville’s heritage and the benefits offered by that area were showcased in the 17th Annual Vestival, held Saturday in the South Knoxville neighborhood of Vestal. This year’s theme was “Live, Work, Play, South of the River.” The event was held on the grounds of the historic Candoro Marble Building, the administration building for the once thriving Candoro Marble Works which supplied East Tennessee marble for public buildings throughout the country.

Despite the overcast start to the day, organizer Chelsea Voelker was expecting 12,000 people to visit the 56 vendors who had booths for the event.

Vestival started with a Mothers’ Day brunch to honor the mothers present. As they dined the mothers were entertained by the smooth jazz sound of the Britini Zoh Hammrick Band. Then they were treated to Mothers’ Day photographs.

There was something for everyone. Vendor booths included such things as hand made jewelry, quilts, pine cone art, woodworking and scrap metal sculpture. For the children there was face painting and an art booth to sharpen their artistic skills.

Acrobatic feats were performed by Dragonfly Aerial Arts and sword fighting demonstrations were put on by the Knoxville Academy of the Blade.

Continuous music from three stages entertained the crowd with a variety of different types of music. The smell of fresh barbecue and other edible goodies filled the air.

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