(upbeat music) - The Chesapeake Spring Art Festival.

We have been growing every year we started out with 50 artists, and this year we're gonna have 130 artists on the ground displaying their works and things like that.

We've got food trucks here all day, six to choose from, and they rotate out each day.

So there's a wide selection of food to be had.

We've also got live entertainment all weekend.

(lively music) I've lived in this area since about 1990 and about seven years ago I moved to Chesapeake and I've always been a very artsy kind of person.

I'm not an artist, but I go to art shows like this all the time.

And when I moved to Chesapeake, I was kind of surprised that there was no art show in Chesapeake.

And even more widespread, there's kind of a lack of arts in Chesapeake.

I was a new member in the Chesapeake Rotary and they were looking for a new Spring event.

I'm like, well, why don't we do an art show?

It was not my intention to run an art show at that point.

But the Chesapeake Rotary, one of the reasons that I joined it is that the Chesapeake Rotary runs big events.

They do the Chesapeake Wine Festival in the fall.

They do the Chesapeake Christmas parade in the winter.

So we did have a core group of people that is familiar with putting on events, even though I didn't.

I've sort of made it my mission to more broadly encourage arts and arts programs in Chesapeake, and this was sort of my first big step so that Chesapeake could have an art show along the caliber someday of Stockley Gardens and things like that.

(warm music) We're 100% volunteer ran, over the course of the weekend, we will probably have 100 people out here volunteering at various stages, doing shifts.

We've got all the artists load in that is going on right now.

We've got ticket sales that go on all weekend.

We've got artist support.

We gotta keep them fed and hydrated and things like that.

Some of us are here all weekend.

All proceeds from the show are going to various charities.

We don't make any money off this event.

We typically fund the Chesapeake Rotary's Coats for Kids Program, and we also give to various arts programs in Chesapeake geared toward children.

So we've given money to the schools before.

We've given money to For Kids.

We've also given money to Tidewater Winds and other various performing groups, things like that.

The Fine Arts Commission, the chair, Lisa Wigginton, has done a fantastic job of rallying some really arts centric people to be on that commission.

And we've been working with some big corporate groups to look into ways that we can bring more arts into Chesapeake.

I really do see a lot more activity for the arts in Chesapeake moving forward.

I think we're improving it a lot.

(upbeat music)