Betsy Menand lives in Colorado, but has been attending the Sedona Plein Air Festival for the past three years and doesn’t intend to stop.

“I lived in Flagstaff for, like, 30 years,” she said. “So then we moved to Colorado, and I wasn’t doing very much art.”
She said plein air festivals are where people will travel to different places outdoors to paint. Many of these places are national parks or places of natural beauty, like Sedona. “Plein air” is French for “in the open air.”

“It’s a little bit of a new, trendy thing in the last 20 years,” she said.

After Menand participated in a plein air event at the Grand Canyon in 2020, she felt very inspired.

“So that was one thing I did that year,” she said. “Then the next year, I was like, ‘well, maybe I should try to do more events.’”
Menard said she went to art school back in the 1980s at the University of Denver, but hadn’t done much with it. Her husband builds houses and boats and she raised a couple children.

“You know, it’s fun because it’s like a destination thing,” she said. “You travel, we’ll go create art and hopefully sell some art. So then I applied and did some in New Mexico and at a Colorado National Monument here in Colorado.”

A lot of times, she says events are hard to sell art, but the Sedona art community is strong.

“I’ve been lucky at this Sedona event,” she said. “People come and they actually purchase work now. So it’s also very good for artists. You have people come and buy this stuff.”

Because she lived in Flagstaff for so long and is familiar with Sedona, she likes doing art here that feels like something out of her back yard.

“I’ve always wanted to paint that cool sign in front of Indian Gardens just right up Oak Creek,” she said. Artists painting cool old signs is kind of a genre of art, too. “I wanted to tackle it, so I’m going to do, it’s a very cool sign. … It’s like the scene of the rock sitting right above Sedona with like apple orchard baskets and things, and with the light.”

She said her most recent plein air event was in Estes Park, Colorado.

“You never know how it’s going to go,” she said. “But I got top prize two years ago…. It depends on who’s judging and if what you did sparks joy for them. Anyway, this year, it sparked joy again. I got third place, which is pretty good out of like 150 paintings.”

Sedona Festival

The Sedona Plein Air Festival takes place Monday, Oct. 20, at 8 a.m. to Sunday, Oct. 26, at 5 p.m.

“This will be the 21st plein air festival,” Sedona Arts Center Director Julie Richard said. “It’s probably one of the first continuously running and the oldest continuously running plein air festivals in the country, would be my guess, at least in the West.”

The festival has, in years past, been a 10-day affair, but this year will run just seven.

“We did that because at the end of the festival, the artists can’t even say their names — they’re so exhausted — and neither can we … it was very long,” Richard said.

Over the course of those seven days, artists will host art demonstrations where they will show their artistic process, attend paint outs where they will be given a time limit to paint what they can and will participate in artist games as well.

Art demos include three artists who will explain their process for painting while giving the demonstration.

SAC marketing director Kelli Klymenko said many of the artists are also teachers who love to explain exactly what they’re doing.

“They’ll communicate with people all the different styles, techniques,” he said, “they’ll answer questions, what kind of paints they use, … where they like to paint the most.”

The demonstrations often happen between 1 and 3 p.m. daily, which Klymenko said is an interesting time of day to paint, because the shadows are coming basically from right overhead and the sunlight is very direct. There will also be two paint out events for the festival participants: One at DA Ranch in Page Springs and one at a private residence. There will also be a community paint out on Oct. 26, with a $15 registration fee. SAC requests attendees register in advance to have an idea for the number of people who’ll be there.

Two years ago, there were 68 artists because, Klymenko said, SAC was trying to get 65 for the 65th anniversary of the Sedona Arts Center, but overshot it a bit.

“Between the events that we have, they just go and paint,” Richard said. “They paint like fast and furious, and they are trying to paint at least two paintings a day, if not more, because at the end, they pick their top three paintings … for judging. And our top prize is $5,000.”

The artists will go just about anywhere. Many are avid hikers and will go to great lengths to get inspiration or references such as the elusive spotted owl.

“One year, one of our artists, he spotted some pretty significant owls and was able to paint them because they hung out,” Richard said. “Plus, he’s a naturalist anyway, so he really enjoys, kind of getting off the beaten trail and seeing what he can see.”

The awards ceremony for the festival has historically happened on the Friday of the event, but this year SAC has changed it to Saturday, Oct. 25. Artists’ products will also be for sale on Sunday.

“The artists are given the choice whether to leave work behind,” Richard said. “We’ll have whatever work is left behind in the [Sedona Art Center Gallery] through the month of November, so people can see it.”

Artists

There are 23 artists listed on the festival website, in addition to Menand. Each has different styles and processes.

“The invited professional artists numbered around 24, I believe,” Richard said. “We usually have between 22 and 25 participate in the festival itself each year.”

“We usually invite about 14, 15 artists back, or it’s a combination of art — inviting them back, or hand-picking other artists that we want to include,” Richard said. “Then we have an open call. … One of the things that I like to see is a range of artists’ genres. So most plein air painters are oil painters, but not all of them. And we like to have a good selection of pastel painters and watercolor painters.”

It’s tough to get such a diverse set of artists because it’s hard to find plein air artists who paint in watercolor, but Richard said they made sure to hand pick a few for this year’s lineup.

“One thing about Betsy [Menard], she actually paints with acrylic wash as well as pastel,” Richard said. “So she’s really fun to have, and her style is way different than anybody else’s.”