Enjoy the amazing stunts and skills of an eclectic mix of street performers and artists as they dazzle you in Artsplosure’s Performer Piazza, located on Martin Street at Moore Square. Featuring: The Zany Umbrella Circus, Juggle Boy Scott Nicolson, Julia Hartsell’s Hoopnotic, Paul Miller’s Flow Circus, and Patrick “Jubal” Creech!

The Garden Within is an interactive installation that will be created and presented at Artsplosure 2007. Taking the form of a larger-than-life inverted rose garden-the piece stands approximately 15 feet tall and will be suspended in the trees in Moore Square. Escape and experience the tranquility of this interactive work of art. Hailing from Rhode Island, artist Victoria Ralston has made her mark on the arts in North Carolina by sharing her work with others. Since 1991, she has created and displayed a range of interactive pieces, in addition to teaching art at local schools and colleges.

Challenge others to a game of life-size chess! The Moncure Chessworks was opened in 1998 by scrap metal sculptor, Lyle Estill. It is primarily a metal working shop, although Estill shares the space with other resident artists, who have worked in glass, fabric, cement, and a wide variety of other mediums.

Sometimes it takes a whole village to create a work of art! You are invited to join artists Jason Craighead and David Green in a community collaborative art project. Add your own personal splash of color to the oversized painting formed by these two talented artists, and watch it evolve over the course of the weekend. Special thanks to Jerry’s Artarama for donating supplies.

Jason Craighead is considered one of the leading abstract expressionists in the Southeast. Jason prefers to work in a medium to large scale because “painting is a physical activity as much as it is a mental activity,” he says. And he finds his inspiration in the “large vision that is constantly in my mind. Each piece is only a small part of this greater vision-of a whole body of work. I’m going to push it and change it a little every time, but each painting sets me up to do another.” At Artsplosure 2007, Craighead reunites with his long-time friend and artistic partner David Green, a professional artist and art educator currently working in Florida, to bring a giant painting to life. And the best part is. YOU get to be a part of it too!

New and expanded! Watch Ed Moore turn tons of sand into a work of art. He has taught sand sculpture classes at the NC Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores, won numerous sand sculpture contests at Virginia Beach, Atlantic Beach, Wrightsville Beach and Atlanta, participated in the World Championships in British Columbia and sculpted with master sand sculptors from Florida to California. Ed has been a sculptor most of his life. Working in clay, wood and metal, he developed a love and talent for three-dimensional art. Those interests expanded through his youth and turned into a career in architecture and he is now an owner of Moore + Burton Architects, PA in Raleigh, NC.

Sign up to compete in the sand sculpting competition and try your hand at sculpting a piece of art out of a mound of sand!