Video and Gallery: Community Arts Festival Brings Bollywood, Chicago to Downtown Reading

Saturday's Community Arts Festival drew a small crowd to view locally-made art, meet local art organizations and watch a collection of local performers.

Victoria Smith, the education and outreach coordinator for Creative Arts, said that the event in the basement of the First Congregational Church turned into a networking occasion as much as a showcase of local talent.

A number of art-related groups make a home in Reading, Smith said, and "pretty much all of them where here today."

"A lot of the vendors really enjoyed talking with each other," Smith said.

Dianne Russo echoed that sentiment. She bought a table at the event to display her Felicity & Grae and Belleflower Design jewelry lines and said she met some of the groups in town that she would like to volunteer with.

"What brought me here today is wanting to support the cultural connection here," Russo said.

She said she would purchase a table at the event again, which she may have the chance to do. Smith said Creative Arts built the Community Arts Festival as an annual event—though the group may hold the next festival during the spring instead of the fall.