Our 13th annual Portland Art and Heritage Fair was a special one. Everyone was on their A-game, and smiles filled the yard a’plenty. Read on to see the photo evidence!
2025:
It Ain’t Easy
As is tradition the year started with the running of the Portland Almost 5k! Racers traveled over to Shippingport, through Lannan Park, and saw the many sights of Portland’s canalfront.
The race started and finished this year at Portland’s Sprak Skateboarding! We were really thrilled to work with this new neighborhood staple, and they in-turn offered skateboarding demos and lessons!
We were really honored to be sponsored by Portland Now, Inc. and with their support this year’s fair had more vendors than ever before! Art, food, nonprofit information, and more abound!
Alongside vendors we had a bit of a maker fair this year led by longtime Art and Heritage Fair participants Lacie Eubank and Brianne Miller! Visitors could walk-up and do a variety of arts activities themselves for free!
A new addition to this year’s fair was an artist-in-residence, and the inaugural one was McHank who flew out from San Diego, California! McHank is a zine aficionado and he worked with visitors to draw pages soon to be featured in one!
Our AHOY project also received a major milestone: a grant of $250,000 from Louisville Metro Government! Councilperson Donna Purvis presented this oversized check to our director Katy Delahanty, and we can’t wait to put this funding to work!
And what’s a Portland Art and Heritage Fair without the Louisville Leopard Percussionists? The yard was PACKED with visiting families, and the kids gave a great show as per always!
Recently relocated to the neighborhood is Art Sanctuary, and as part of this year’s Fair they helped us put on some more music after the percussionists. We had live jazz from students at UofL’s school of music, folk magic from the Hollow Moon String Band, and an acoustic performance from the one and only PortlandNate! Throughout the day we also had records spinning thanks to Squallis Puppeteers’ Shawn Hennesy!
Inside the museum we had the opening of Kindling, an art show by Cincinnati-based sculptor Clive Moloney! After a successful run at garner LARGE we were thrilled to bring this show to the people of Portland!
And last but certainty not least, our friends at American Horrorplex ended the day with Portland Night at their haunted house. Anyone sporting a Portland-relevant t-shirt, hopefully bought at the Fair, got in free! They also sent some ghouls to patrol the fair!
Thanks to everyone who came and participated in this year’s fair! Until next year!!
Please be sure to support our wonderful 2026 sponsors!
Richard Meadows & Suzi Bernert
In Memory of Edward K. Meadows