Kim Mitchell's favorite way to describe RiverClay starts with an ordinary Thursday.
"On Thursday, it's just your normal, typical City Hall," she told me. "And on Friday it becomes an arts festival, and there's white tents everywhere."
Every third weekend in October, that's exactly what happens. The lawn at Decatur City Hall fills with more than 70 artists from across the country, plus food, music, live demonstrations and a whole lot of conversation. You drive by one day and it's a government building. You drive by the next and, poof, there it is. "It just transforms," Kim said, "and the whole energy changes."
Kim is the executive director of the Carnegie Visual Arts Center, a member of the RiverClay Steering Committee and a member of the Alabama State Council on the Arts. She first joined me on Episode 107 to talk about the Carnegie. On Episode 124 of Unexpected Adventures in North Alabama, she came back to tell the story of the festival she helped build, and why it has become such a special fall tradition in Decatur.
From Art Walk to RiverClay
RiverClay didn't start out as RiverClay. For several years, the Carnegie sponsored Art Walk, and it simply wasn't growing the way it needed to. So they stopped it.
Then the community spoke up. Kim kept hearing the same thing: we need an art festival in Decatur. Why did y'all stop? Her answer was that a festival like that needed a committee dedicated to nothing but putting it on. So they restructured, formed that committee and started working on RiverClay around 2012 or 2013.
The name took a lot of brainstorming. They kept coming back to the Tennessee River, and to a piece of Decatur history I had never heard before: the city used to make bricks. You can still find them all over the state, stamped "Decatur, Alabama." The river, and the clay that made those bricks. RiverClay. I learned something new right off the bat, and I think it's a perfect name.
What "Juried" Really Means
RiverClay is a juried fine arts festival, and that's worth understanding before you go. Artists apply by sending in three pieces of their work and a photo of their booth, with no names attached. When the jury meets, they judge only the work and how the booth looks. They don't know who anyone is.
"We take a lot of pride in what our festival looks like," Kim said. The booth shot matters because RiverClay wants every artist's storefront to look its best. As a fine arts festival, it isn't the place for craft-show doilies, but there's a wide range of media and price points. You'll find paintings, pottery, glass, jewelry, wood and a lot more.
Why Artists Keep Coming Back
Here's the part of the conversation I loved most. RiverClay is still a fairly new festival in festival world, so how has it built a reputation with artists who travel the whole country?
"I think what makes us different is we take care of our artists."
RiverClay feeds its artists breakfast, lunch and snacks, throws a party for them and makes sure they get breaks. If an artist needs anything, a volunteer will go stand in their booth. Kim said artists regularly tell her, "I've never been so well-hydrated and fed in my life."
She was honest about why that matters. Life on the festival circuit, she said, "is not for the faint of heart." Artists haul everything in, set up a tent, work three or four long days, then tear it all down and load the van for the next town. "They may not sell the most they've ever sold in their life, but they know they're gonna be treated incredibly well, so they're willing to take a chance on our festival."
That's Southern hospitality, and it's a big reason visitors feel it too. Artists tell Kim how often people walk into their booths just to say, "Thank you for being here." That means a lot to someone who has traveled a long way.
Fine Art for Every Budget (and Every Story)
I think some people hear "fine art" and assume it isn't for them, or that they can't afford anything. Kim was clear that RiverClay was built to be approachable, whether you're just starting a collection or have been collecting for years.
"Don't think, 'Oh, I can't afford anything,'" she said. "That's not the case here."
I can back that up. I'll be completely transparent: I don't have a huge art budget. A couple of years ago at RiverClay, I bought a wooden vase from an artist based not far from here, I think in the Florence area. It has a small test tube set into the middle, just right for a few little sprigs. I put zinnias in it sometimes. It cost around $25 or $30, and every time I see it I think, I got that at RiverClay.
Another piece I love is a small reclaimed-wood frame with a cardinal sitting in it. The artist collects wood from houses and buildings being torn down around the country, and she told me the wood in mine came from a house in Pensacola, Florida. They say a cardinal is a visitor from heaven, and that piece spoke to me the moment I saw it.
That's what Kim wants people to experience. Her advice is to go into every booth and talk with the artists, "'cause it changes your perspective on whatever their art form is." When you hear why someone creates what they create, the piece you bring home means something more. And in this day and age of AI, she pointed out, everything at RiverClay is human-made. "Someone had to have an idea in their mind and create something out of that idea."
Her challenge to first-timers: start your collection. A small watercolor, a wooden vase, a handmade mug. "Just get started," she said, "and you'll get the bug."
Watch the Art Happen
RiverClay also features demonstrating artists who create on site through the weekend, so you can watch a piece come together and ask about the process. One year there were sidewalk chalk artists creating huge murals on the pavement. Anyone who has tried to draw a little sun and a rainbow on the sidewalk with kids knows how hard that is. Watching them go from first lines to a finished, shaded mural by the end of the festival was fascinating.
Get First Pick at the Rendezvous
If you want a head start, RiverClay hosts a ticketed preview party called the Rendezvous. You're the first to meet the artists and the first with the chance to buy. It starts on the City Hall campus, and as it gets dark the party moves to the Alabama Center for the Arts for more food, a band and time with the artists.
It's also more relaxed than the main festival days, so you get real one-on-one time to hear how an artist learned their craft. And if you've had your eye on something, Kim's advice is simple: "Get in there and get that work as soon as you can." The hope, after all, is that every artist sells everything they bring. Check riverclay.org for current tickets and details.
Giving Back to the Next Generation
RiverClay isn't only about one weekend. The festival gives back to arts education in area schools, because, as Kim put it, the goal is to encourage "the next generation of artists and art lovers."
RiverClay's education grants let art teachers buy things their regular budgets can't cover. One teacher bought a set of cameras for a photography unit. Another bought a kiln for pottery. Others bought higher-end papers and supplies. Kim calls it the icing on top: the extra that lets teachers do what they dream of doing with their students.
Make sure to walk through the student art tent when you visit. RiverClay has also added a student recycled art competition: a plastics-recycling sponsor gives each school a box of materials with limits on size and color, and the students have to figure out what to make. "You can make something beautiful out of something that's discarded," Kim said.
And not every student will become a professional artist, which is exactly the point. "We always like to say at the Carnegie, art is everywhere," Kim said. It's in the design of your cereal box and the billboard down the road, and it's behind careers in marketing and graphic design. Plenty of doctors make art as a hobby, too.
Plan Your RiverClay Weekend in Decatur
RiverClay has become a reason to spend the whole weekend in Decatur, not just a few hours. Here's how Kim would build it:
- Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. Make time to get out to the refuge.
- Downtown shopping between festival laps.
- Free galleries at the Carnegie Visual Arts Center and the Alabama Center for the Arts.
- The Old State Bank and Decatur's railroad museum.
- A walk through the historic neighborhoods if you love old homes and architecture, ideally on a crisp fall day.
For more ideas across the region, browse northalabama.org.
At the festival itself, grab a RiverClay map and work your way around every booth. There are food trucks, children's activities, a children's art tent and demonstrating artists. "We can keep you busy," Kim said. And yes, we can.
Want to Be Part of It?
Artists: Applications open each year at riverclay.org. You'll submit three images of your work and a booth shot and pay a jury fee. Competition for the roughly 70 spots is strong, so put your best work forward. Kim's advice: throw your hat in the ring.
Volunteers and sponsors: Start at riverclay.org too. Volunteers pull wagons of food out to the artists' booths, help with the children's activities and pitch in wherever they're needed, even for just a couple of hours. As Kim said, it's a chance to be part of something bigger than yourself.
What Surprised Her Most
I close every episode the same way, so I asked Kim what has been unexpected in her journey with RiverClay and the Carnegie. Her answer was Decatur itself: "unexpectedly friendly and vibrant." There's a lot of energy in the city right now, and she hopes RiverClay keeps growing with it. One day she'd love to see it spread beyond City Hall to places like Delano Park, with artists set up across the city. I called it an art crawl, and she liked the sound of that.
For now, it has become exactly what the community asked for when Art Walk ended: part of the fabric of Decatur, and what people expect in October.
Listen to the Full Conversation
There's more in the episode than I could fit here, including the demonstrating artists, why the Carnegie's STEAM summer camps pair science-minded and art-minded kids in its dye garden, and the time my niece built a robot almost as tall as she was out of my recycling bin.
Listen to Episode 124 with Kim Mitchell on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen, and follow the show so you never miss an adventure. Then catch Kim's first visit to the show on Episode 107. Every episode is also at northalabama.org/podcast.
Find the festival at riverclay.org and on Facebook and Instagram by searching "RiverClay," and keep up with the Carnegie at carnegiearts.org.
Every third weekend in October, come early, visit every booth and bring home something with a story.
