Aug. 21—Here comes the sun … flowers.
The Sunflower Festival is returning to Mountainair on Saturday, Aug. 23, for a celebration of art and sunflowers.
“From the beginning, we called it a Sunflower Festival because this is the time of the year when we have a lot of sunflowers that are on the back roads,” said Anne Ravenstone, festival project director.
The festival is now in its 25th year.
“We started that festival, and it just grew and grew,” Ravenstone said. “And the town came on board with us as a partner, and we now have about 3,000 or 4,000 people that show up each year for the festival.”
Mountainair benefits from the thousands of visitors to the festival, Ravenstone said.
“What it means for this little town is that all the businesses are open, all the restaurants, it’s their best day of the year,” Ravenstone said, “because people go in there and eat and economically it’s a really a wonderful thing for the town.”
Ravenstone said that people are drawn to the festival because it showcases Mountainair and its art.
“I think people in this state, in general, love to find small towns where there are authentic things going on,” Ravenstone said. “And this particular festival has kind of gotten a reputation, because we actually jury our art vendors, so we have a really high quality of arts and crafts.”
The vendors sell everything from jewelry to wood and metal works to paintings, according to Ravenstone. She says that most vendors have a few sunflower-themed items.
The Sunflower Festival will also have games, music, food, a beer and wine garden, and more. A tradition is the sunflower hat and costume contest.
“At first it was just hats, and we always give prizes for both a kid category and an adult category,” Ravenstone said. “But now, for about the last probably 10 years, people have come in full sunflower costume.”
Those who enter get a chance to show off their costume to the whole festival.
“It’s a really wonderful part of the whole thing, we get everybody together,” Ravenstone said.
“There’s usually about 30 or 40 entrants and they all parade all over the ground, so everybody can see them.”
Ravenstone said the festival has live music that ranges from Hispanic to country western to folk at different venues.
“So there’s a real variety of things,” Ravenstone said. “And I just think again that people in New Mexico love finding some little town that’s got something going on.”
