August 22, 2025

2025 Salem Arts Festival Part I (Salem, MA)

By New England Nomad

Date Of Event: June 6-8

Location: Salem, MA

Summary: Artists from all over the Salem (MA) area showed off their artistic abilities at the 17th annual Salem Arts Festival.

As summer is winding down, sadly, it’s true, I thought it was the perfect time to post photos from the annual Salem Arts Festival in June of this year! Ok, I should have posted them earlier. But, it’s been a busy summer! And I plan to show off more photos from my busy summer soon!

The 17th annual arts festival featured art and artists from all over the Salem, MA, area.

The theme for this year’s festival was Hissstory. As the sign below states, the hissstory project repurposed banners from previous events in the city. These repurposed parts were used to form a very long snake! Citizens of Salem were encouraged to create their segments of the snake which was displayed on Front St; the staging area for the performers. Recycling, or repurposing, at its finest.

The festival ran from June 6th to 8th. But, because of the rainy weather, I only attended on the 8th of June.

Since there was so much art and entertainment at the festival, I have decided to post this blog post in 2 parts. This post will include the popular “Mural Slam” as well as some of the dancers and musicians at the festival.

Without a doubt, the main event of the festival is the mural slam. Twelve artists painted uniquely creative works of art.

The murals weren’t finished until later in the day after I left. So, I stopped by the next weekend to photograph them when they were done. Plus it’s fun seeing how some of the murals evolved. At least it’s fun for me. Maybe I need to get out more.

Paige Doyle-Elwell

Howie Green

Colomba Klenner

Jess “Pickles” Clark

Max Pro

Daphne Powers

Bruce Orr

Naijah Nine

Caoin O’Durgy

Sarah Egan

Jennifer Wackerle

Bobbie Smith

There were additional murals and other works of art that were not part of the mural slam. The elephant was made by Polyvios Christoforos for the 2018 Salem, MA, mural slam. Bonus points if you can name all of the 4 buildings in the painting with the homes.

But, the art wasn’t just the murals and in the old town hall. There were also musicians and dancers. Matt Savage Groove Experiment kicked off the festivities on the second day of the festival. Matt is the keyboard player and composer for the band.

One of the more interesting and creative parts of the festival were the dancers. There were tap dancers.

But, the most interesting dancers were the interpretative dancers.

I hope you join me in part 2 of my blog post from this event which I will post soon!

About New England Nomad

Unknown's avatar
Hi I'm Wayne. Welcome to my blog. I am a true New Englander through and through. I love everything about New England. I especially love discovering new places in New England and sharing my experiences with everyone. I tend to focus on the more unique and lesser known places and things in New England on my blog. Oh yeah, and I love dogs. I always try to include at least one dog in each of my blog posts. I discovered my love of photography a couple of years ago. I know, I got a late start. Now, I photograph anything that seems out of the ordinary, interesting, beautiful and/or unique. And I have noticed how every person, place or thing I photograph has a story behind it or him or her. I don't just photograph things or people or animals. I try to get their background, history or as much information as possible to give the subject more context and meaning. It's interesting how one simple photograph can evoke so much. I am currently using a Nikon D3200 "beginner's camera." Even though there are better cameras on the market, and I will upgrade some time, I love how it functions (usually) and it has served me well. The great thing about my blog is you don't have to be from New England, or even like New England to like my blog (although I've never met anyone who doesn't). All you have to like is to see and read about new or interesting places and things. Hopefully, you'll join me on my many adventures in New England! View all posts by New England Nomad
This entry was posted on Friday, August 22nd, 2025 at 11:58 pm and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , and posted in art, Massachusetts, murals, musicians, New England, Salem, Salem Arts Festival, travel, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

17 responses to “2025 Salem Arts Festival Part I (Salem, MA)”

Leave a reply to susandorling Cancel reply