Discover Salt River, the tourism office of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, held its first ever Salt River Arts Festival on Oct. 4. 

The festival was an opportunity for young artists around the Community and beyond to showcase their work to the public. 

Held at the RoadHouse Cinemas in the Pavilions at Talking Stick, vendors were lined up with their own designated tables to showcase their creations. The festival celebrated the intricate traditional arts of the O’odham and Piipaash while including new and modern mediums. 

“We just want to be a little base area for them to get started, so that was our main goal, but we also had a lot of the older adults that wanted to come through.” said Dashia Hood, customer assistant at Discover Salt River.

Visitors who came were able to stop by and meet with each artist as the tables led to RoadHouse where an art gallery was set up in its dining area. Tables and chairs were cleared out for guest to walk through artwork of young artisans, including a winning piece of a Discover Salt River art contest.

The winner, Lily Standing Elk’s artwork, was presented as the art festivals logo and many stickers of her artwork were given out. The contest was open to SRPMIC youth to create a piece of work that best embodies the Community. 

The piece shows a bald eagle with a desert background and cactus along with a sunset and the words “O’ODHAM-PIIPAASH” drawn in colorful lettering.

“I created this art piece to embody the Salt River Community. The illustration is based on the tribe’s strength, freedom, and spiritual significance. The Bald Eagle shown in the artwork is supposed to represent independence and the connection with the spiritual realm. A few reasons why I put a desert in the background of my design is because it symbolizes resilience, survival, sacredness, and the balance between life and scarcity.” Standing Elk said in her artist statement.

The festival ended with a cool breeze and beautiful sunset as lights overhead lit up the walkway for last-minute chances to make purchases and to see the amazing work of the talented artists who were in attendance one last time.

“My favorite part is seeing different communities coming out to see all of the Native vendors out here and getting to socialize with everybody and just having a great time together, even though we don’t really know each other but getting to just come together as a community,” said Teniya Salzar, a young artist. “I’m happy to be here, I’m happy that our Community does things for us like this [art festival].”