The Sweetwater 905 Arts Festival will be once again grace the Mattson farm this Labor Day long weekend.

What began as a bi-annual Festival of the Sweetwater Moon, seemed to have boomed overnight.

“After 2009 we had quite a lot of talk going around about it and then we started receiving applications from artists, even though we didn’t have an application process,” said event co-ordinator Inge-Jean Mattson.

Since its inception in 1997 many changes have taken place. Perhaps the biggest was moving the festival from the Rolla Community Hall to Emilie and Larry Mattson’s farm.

The idea was to bring the event out of a formal setting, said Mattson.

“We always see it in galleries or halls, or on stage, in a closed indoor setting, so we wanted to bring it to a more raw format. Back to the family farm,” she explained.

Some of this year’s musical features include the Agnostics with Jackson Phibes, and a Persian fusion band, Navaz. Mamaguroove is returning as well as The June Gloom whose lead singer Cam Purvis is originally from Dawson Creek.

Rachelle van Zanten from Francois Lake is another up-and-comer. “She’s starting to make a big splash in Canada,” Mattson remarked.

Visual artists, Adrian Williams from Montreal, and Perry Thompson from Toronto will also make appearances.
Media artist, Julian Pinder will showcase his documentary called, Land, about the fight over land between foreigners and the Native Nicaraguans, which is short listed for the Cannes Film Festival.

Also appearing is Severn Cullis-Suzuki, daughter of David Suzuki, who will be speaking about issues around water, including the Site C Dam.

“That’s definitely a highlight,” exclaimed Mattson. “It’ll be really pertinent to everything that’s been going on here.”
Mattson said the best thing about the festival is the interaction between the artists and the people there to see them.

“The good thing is that all these artists are going to mill around and be there, so the audience really gets to mingle with the artists and vice versa. So it’s an experience for both the audience and the artist,” she explained.

The children are not forgotten as Sweetwater 905 has a variety of activities lined up for them as well. Kid’s entertainer Al Simmons will perform and there will also be pony rides, face painting, carriage rides, and farm demonstrations, including ice cream making.

Advance tickets are available until Sept. 1 for $50 for the weekend. After that, tickets are $40 per day, or $60 for the weekend at the gate. Camping is included with the tickets.

Tickets are sold at the Dawson Creek Art Gallery, Peace Photographics, Read’s Books, the Rolla Store and the Rolla Pub.

For more information and a complete artist line-up visit www.sweetwater905.ca.

jwoodford@dcdn.ca