Because of public health and safety concerns, we have decided to reschedule our in-person art parade and festival to the Spring of 2022! Check back here for the new date soon.
So instead of an in-person parade this fall, we are holding an ONLINE PARADE and CONTEST. We are now accepting photographic or video entries from October 1st through midnight on Oct. 31st. Best costume and creation will be chosen by our TCA judges. Work must be original. Check our RULES & PRIZES page for more details. Click on the ENTRY FORM to get started with your entry!
The Handmade Parade is a unique Tuolumne County festival that began in 2016, when two local artists, Laurie Livingston and Luanne Tillman, were inspired by the original parade in the UK, The Hebden Bridge Handmade Parade. With Jen Fletcher, they launched The Tuolumne County Handmade Parade on October 1, 2016.
Shutting down Main Street in Jamestown and filling it with weirdos, what began as a small street parade of local organizations, families, civic groups, schools, and friends, has now grown into a community festival, featuring live music, circus and juggling performers, belly-dancers, and public hands-on arts and crafts creation. The parade is completely a community creation and includes street performers, unique costumes, marching bands, and huge puppets creating a spectacle of art, creativity, public theater, and music.
The Tuolumne County Handmade Parade is all about community participation. Tuolumne County Arts and MotherLode MakerLabs (the community makerspace) has sponsored this event each year and continues to help fund, fuel, and inspire local groups to make wild and wonderful costumes and public art to share with one other for the special event. Workshops leading up to the event each year help to put the materials and tools into people’s hands to create wonderful and expressive things.
Our goal is to strengthen our community through involvement with the arts. By nurturing local involvement, we hope to offer the opportunity to come together in a creative and non-political way that affirms the diversity and richness of our community.
COVID interrupted what would have been our 5th year parade in 2020 - and we have chosen to postpone this year a bit further until Spring 2022, in order to help insure a safe and fun event for our whole town. Thank you to Chicken Ranch Rancheria for once again being the big financial sponsor of our festival and parade!
We look forward to coming together in the Spring for an all new Handmade Parade! Until then, get working on your costume or creation and enter it in our October online contest - and reach out to us if we can help. Look for workshops and more this winter - followed by an exhilarating reunion in the Spring!
Please contact us if you would like to participate, sponsor, or otherwise support our parade!
Tuolumne County Arts
info@tuolumnecountyarts.org