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Rebecca's Experience Working Arts in the Heart

Written by: Rebecca Ranieri
September 2023
Intern Rebecca sitting under a white vending tent at table with a bright green table cloth. She is smiling. She has short brown hair and wears glasses. She is wearing a white volunteer tee shirt.
Rebecca at the Young Artist Market Headquarters at Arts in the Heart 2023

My AITH Experience

 

I enjoyed my time working at the Arts in the Hearts festival of 2023. It was so much fun getting to meet tons of new people and hearing all their stories. Obviously, I also loved getting to try the different foods! It was very inspiring seeing the various types of arts that were there. Even though most of the artwork was out of my price range, I still liked seeing it.

 

I loved getting to work at the YAM booth. The young artists this year were incredibly talented, and I was thoroughly impressed with everything they made! It was very rewarding seeing how happy all the young artists were at the end of each night. This truly was an amazing opportunity for them, and it showed through their enthusiasm. I did not expect so many of the kids to sell out of their artwork each day. Many of them sold out then went home to make more for the next day.

I also feel like I learned a lot working at the festival. The most important thing that I learned was that connections with people and the community are crucial.  The whole festival was centered on bringing our community closer together, and I think it did just that. A great example of this was when I witnessed the artists and vendors come together to help each other out. Since it was raining on Sunday, one of the artist’s tent collapsed and the popcorn vendor moved all of her artwork to a dry place. Then the cigar vendor and a few other artists helped her set everything back up once it stopped raining. The popcorn vendor even let her borrow one of their extra tents. It was so heartwarming and amazing to see them come together to help out someone they really did not know.