After a six-year hiatus, a prominent Medford festival celebrating community, horticulture and art in its many forms will be returning during Mother’s Day weekend.

Art in Bloom will be returning for its 20th year after being paused by the coronavirus pandemic.  

“We felt that now is a good time to hopefully bring the community all back together,” said Cindy Bedingfield, main organizer of Art in Bloom. “I think it’ll be a great event.” 

Art in Bloom is scheduled for 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, May 10, and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, May 11, at Pear Blossom Park, located at 204 N. Bartlett St., in downtown Medford.

The festival is free to attend with some free activities as well as some paid ones. 

“This is a Mother’s Day event, and there’s going to be something for everyone,” Bedingfield said. “We have five or six different activities that kids can come in and make a free gift for mom.” 

Some of those activities include writing poems for mom with the Not So Dead Poets Society organization, a tie-dye station for kids to make colorful creations and more. 

There will also be plenty of entertainment to keep the whole family interested such as a live BMX bike demonstration, chalk art, live performances from groups such as Champion Karate and Ballet Folklorico and Annex Fusion Dance Studio, face painting, demonstrations from a blacksmith with Fluid Forge and other amusements. 

Alongside the performances, demonstrations and other entertainment, there will be more than 60 vendors offering a wide range of goods and products to purchase. 

“It’s going to be cool getting to see all of (the vendors) again; I’ve got six different horticulture vendors,” Bedingfield said. “I have a mix, and I only let typically one or two of the same type of thing in because I want everybody to do well.” 

The wide vendor variety includes a sourdough bread seller, jewelry vendors, garment sellers, lemonade stands, watercolor and oil painters, caricature artists, metal art, freeze-dried candies, and jams and preserves vendors. 

Art in Bloom is a nonprofit group, and some of the revenue generated from the festival will go to benefit other nonprofits in the region such as Walking Tall, a local organization centered on mentoring young men while also setting them up for success in the trades, as well as Youth 71Five Ministries, a nonprofit offering a safe space for youths to grow and develop while bonding with peers through activities. 

“We just really like what we do, and we care that the community is healthy,” Bedingfield said. 

Being retired for the past couple of years while previously serving in event planning and coordinating roles for the Jackson County Fair and other events in the Rogue Valley, Bedingfield took the reins once again for Art in Bloom with the intent of building community while lending space to the creatives of the area. 

“It’s the community, and it’s the artists and food vendors … I’ve worked with all of them for so long,” she said of what motivates her. “We get to do an event where everybody’s happy; very few people are cranky towards you.” 

Before the pandemic-induced hiatus, Art in Bloom brought in tens of thousands of visitors and took over parts of downtown Medford. 

“Art in Bloom at the end brought 20,000 to 30,000 people in for the two-day event,” Bedingfield said. 

This year’s return festival will be primarily based at Pear Blossom Park, but planners aim to bring it to other parts of downtown Medford in the future and add local galleries and arts organizations into the mix. 

“I would love to get back into town because I think we’re beneficial to the merchants downtown, and otherwise we’re at capacity,” Bedingfield said. 

For more information on Art in Bloom, visit art-in-bloom.com. 

Reach reporter James Sloan at james.sloan@rv-times.com