Festival of Arts

Saturday in downtown Gresham

On the third Saturday of July the streets of historic downtown Gresham close to cars and fill with artists’ booths. For the 2026 festival, held Saturday, July 18, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., The Outlook counted 150 artists. They worked in:

• paintings, photographs and prints
• sculpture, woodworking and metalworking
• glass and jewelry
• mixed media in two and three dimensions
• books, ceramics and cottage crafts
• digital art and drawings
• fiber works and clothing

The city’s festival page gives the figure as more than 125 artists from around the Pacific Northwest. The city’s 2026 event listing says over 150 juried artists. Some booths go to “Emerging Artists,” whose fees are waived so that newcomers can show their work. Admission is free, and The Outlook expected about 30,000 visitors that Saturday.

The Gresham Farmers’ Market sets up among the booths on Second Street, Third Street and NE Hood Avenue. Food trucks park along the route, and the downtown restaurants and shops stay open. Local businesses and residents have decorated posts throughout the district. Each post carries a QR code that tells about the artist behind it. Parking downtown is free but, in The Outlook’s words, “can be a bit of a headache” during the festival. Free shuttles run all day from three pickup points: a lot at 440 NW Burnside, Gresham Central Transit at Eighth and Kelly, and City Hall on NW Eastman Parkway.

Two stages ran through the 2026 Saturday in forty-five-minute sets. The World Music Stage opened at 9 with Lennon Holden. It continued with Quinn Lui, the Puddletown Stompers, Oregon Koto Kai, Pa’Lante, Brady Goss and the Ryan Meagher Quartet, and Sisters of the Stars closed it at 4. The Arts Plaza Stage began with Moana Polynesian Dance and ran through Steve Hale, Midschool, Fox Hole, Mt. Hood Pops, A Cara O Cruz and Wild Lilacs before ending with Fun Bloods. The organizers’ page asks visitors to stay into Saturday night for a comedy show.

The Arts Plaza at Second and Kelly

The shuttles drop off and pick up at the Gresham Arts Plaza, at the corner of Second and Kelly. The festival’s hands-on program takes place there. In 2026 the interactive arts on the plaza included sand sculpture, special-effects makeup, metal smithing, a wood lathe, a community art project, product photography, a symphonic band, sewing, quilting, chainsaw art, painting and Raku sculpture.

The children’s area is also on the plaza. In 2018 children there worked at craft stations, cooled off in the splash fountain, had their faces painted, met reptiles and collected sticker badges from firefighters and police officers. Lost items are held at the plaza. The festival map advises parents to photograph their children before setting out, so they can remember what the children were wearing.

The Center for the Arts Foundation, which produces the festival, began with this plaza. The foundation was founded in 2005, and the plaza was one of its first major projects. The foundation calls it the city’s “living room,” with light, water and sound worked into its design. Among its early sponsorships was a mural at Third and Roberts by Lee Lauritzen, which depicts scenes from Gresham’s historic development.

Three days on Main Avenue

The Saturday festival is the main day of a three-day run, which The Outlook calls the largest festival in East Multnomah County. In 2026 it opened on Thursday, July 16, with a festival edition of Third Thursday, the monthly street fair. From 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., Main Avenue was closed between First and Fifth Streets for live music, more than 80 vendor booths and downtown businesses keeping late hours.

On Friday evening, Music Under the Stars took over the same stretch from 5 to 9 p.m., with dancing in the street and beer and wine tastings. Opera a la Cart performed at First and Main, Hit Machine at Third, and the Jade Chinese Dancers at Fifth.

From Art Walk to Festival of Arts

The Oregon Historical Society’s Oregon Encyclopedia says the event was formerly the Gresham Art Walk, and that Gresham’s cultural calendar today centers on it. The festival occupies the downtown that grew on the adjoining 1851 land claims of brothers Jackson and James Powell. The same streets held the Multnomah County Fair from 1907 to 1969.

For years the city of Gresham ran the summer event as the Gresham Arts Festival. In 2018, its 17th year, it was a two-day celebration. More than 170 artist booths showed painters, potters, sculptors, woodworkers, photographers and jewelers, and an estimated 20,000 people came.

The Center for the Arts Foundation later took the festival over from the city, which The Outlook in 2026 dated to “a few years ago.” The foundation renamed it and restored the Thursday and Friday events. Its founder and president is Sue O’Halloran, and Shannon Chisom serves as the festival’s production coordinator. The City of Gresham now sponsors the event. The festival appears in print both as the Festival of Arts and the Festival of the Arts. In the 2025 Reader’s Choice poll of The Outlook and Sandy Post, readers named the revamped festival Best Festival/Parade.

A bronze for Mr. Gresham

The 2018 festival opened on Friday night, July 20. That evening organizers announced that the Art Under the Stars charitable silent auction would support Gresham Outdoor Public Art and fund a life-size bronze sculpture of Todd Kirnan. Kirnan is known to many in town as “Mr. Gresham,” and the statue was meant to celebrate the kindness he brings to the community. “We are so excited to bring this statue to the community in honor of Todd,” said Judy Han, president of the group.

The sculptor was Heather Soderberg of Cascade Locks, whose other works stand at Main Avenue and Third Street. The Outlook reported that the site had not been set. One possibility was Main Avenue between Café Delirium and Pho.com, and the statue was expected to be in place that fall.

On the Saturday the town held “Paint to Fame,” billed as the world’s largest paint party. Residents painted in groups, each copying a scene of Mount Hood framed by evergreens. Guy Edwards of Brainjar Media designed the scene so that painters of any skill level could manage it, and he was on hand to guide them. “The Arts Festival is about celebrating art, so what better way to get the community involved than to have everyone paint together,” Edwards said. The day closed with Gresham’s Got Talent, in which entertainers from across East Multnomah County competed on the big stage.