The House That Art Built!
Some art festivals rent a pretty setting. Atalaya was actually built around an artist, which makes its September gathering feel less like a show dropped into place and more like the house waking up again.
Where the Studio Becomes the Gallery
The 51st Annual Atalaya Arts & Crafts Festival returns to Huntington Beach State Park in Murrells Inlet September 25 through 27, bringing more than 100 juried artists into one of South Carolina’s most unusual creative spaces.
That setting changes the whole equation.
Atalaya was the winter home of sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington and her husband, scholar and philanthropist Archer Huntington. Built during the Great Depression, the Moorish-style residence was modeled after architecture along Spain’s Mediterranean coast and designed with Anna’s work very much in mind.
Its central 40-foot watchtower gives the house its name, which means “watchtower” in Spanish. Around it are courtyards, long corridors and both indoor and outdoor studio spaces where Huntington could work on the large animal sculptures for which she became known.
For one weekend, those rooms return to their original purpose: making and encountering art.
A House Doing What It Was Built to Do
The festival runs noon to 5 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Fine visual art and crafts fill the National Historic Landmark, while artist demonstrations and live music give visitors a chance to see some of the process behind what is hanging, standing or being carried home.
And that is what separates Atalaya from the standard fall art fair.
A painting inside a convention hall is still a painting. Put contemporary makers into rooms where another artist once wrestled with scale, material and form, and the conversation becomes more interesting. Visitors are seeing new work while moving through a place deliberately shaped for creative labor.
The festival also makes the building itself harder to treat as a relic. Those courtyards stop being architectural details. Studios become working spaces again. The house feels inhabited by ideas rather than preserved behind them.
Admission is $10 per person per day, with ages 15 and younger admitted free. For anyone who wants more context before festival weekend, Huntington Beach State Park also offers information on Atalaya’s history and interpretation throughout the year.
For one September weekend, Atalaya stops behaving like the former home of an artist and starts acting like an artist’s home again.
Keep the fall calendar going with more events around the state in the Guide to South Carolina directory at https://guidetosouthcarolina.com/festivals.