Judges Announced For 52nd Kentuck Festival Of The Arts

NORTHPORT, AL — Kentuck Art Center on Monday announced Rebecca Hoffberger and Glenda E. Hood as judges for the 52nd Kentuck Festival of the Arts.

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The annual arts festival will be held Oct. 14-15 at Kentuck Park in Northport.

Hoffberger is the founder and director emeritus of the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, while Hood served as Florida secretary of state and was the first woman to serve as mayor of the City of Orlando. She is also president of Hood Partners, LLC.

"I visited Ms. Hoffberger at the American Visionary Art Museum in 2019," Kentuck Art Center Executive Director Amy Echols said. "She spoke passionately about her personal connections with the art, entertaining ambassadors from other countries, and she even told me of her admiration for Alabama's own Nobel Prize Winner E.O. Wilson. She graciously gave us a tour, and in the middle of it, stopped to greet another museum guest in sign language. I knew I was in the presence of an extraordinary human, and I am thrilled Kentuck's artists will now have the chance to have their work judged by one of the greatest artistic visionaries of this century."

Echols said she also visited with Hood to see her private art collection, which began with the birds her father carved for her as a child.

"Her strong understanding of the folk art genre and her knowledge of economic development through the arts has made her a wonderful asset to Kentuck's Board of Directors," Echols said. "She has attended the Kentuck Festival for more than 20 years, and I am thrilled that this year she has agreed to be a judge.”

Judges will award a total of $12,200 to exhibiting artists at the Kentuck Festival of the Arts this year. This will be done on Saturday, Oct. 14, with judges numerically scoring exhibiting artists based on quality, originality, design, composition, technique, and overall presentation.

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