Saturday, the Cotton District was flooded with artists and attendees alike for the annual Cotton District Arts Festival hosted by the Starkville Area Arts Council.
There was a broad range of arts on display — including sculptures, ceramics, paintings, pottery, graphic arts, drawings and weavings. There was also a face painting booth that was particularly popular among children, indicated by the number of rainbow butterflies and fearsome tigers roaming around the festival.
As the festival was on Halloween weekend, a costume contest was held for the vendors as well as a pet parade that kicked off the festival in the morning. 
New artists pop up from all over the state of Mississippi, different foods roll through and more bands take to one of the handful of stages set up along the Cotton District. This year, there were three stages, all outfitted with local acts performing — bouncing between music, dancing, poetry, gospel acts and ending with a drag show.
Ian Burke, a senior wildlife, fisheries and aquaculture major, was one of the many artists putting their work on display at the festival. Burke’s business, Oddities by Ian, and style were full of whimsy and fantasy, brought forth through bone necklaces and hand-painted pinecone magnets.
Burke said the morning was definitely on the slower side for business because their work caters a bit more toward a younger audience, but as the day went on, more and more people started stopping by. Burke said the best part of selling homemade art is seeing people’s first reactions to it.
“It’s fun to see people wearing the stuff. Like, ‘Oh, you think this is cool, too?’ Because I make a lot of the stuff that I like, so it’s cool to see when other people like it,” Burke said.
The Cotton District Arts Festival is split up into a variety of different villages. The Artisan’s Village is the most popular and largest of the villages, but there are many other areas to visit, such as the Writer’s Village, International Village and Children’s Village.
All of the food vendors along the sidewalks — most of them representing local restaurants throughout town — represent the Tastes of Starkville portion of the festival.
However, due to the inclement weather and sporadic bouts of rain throughout the day, not all of the vendors who were slated to make appearances showed up. 
There were about 97 artists signed up, but only around 67 of them set up their booths. Additionally, out of the 30 food vendors, about 17 of them were present. 
Despite all of this, there were many more vendors for the festival this year as opposed to last year, as the Starkville area was still riding out the heights of the COVID-19 pandemic.
John Walrod of Walrod Art had his first booth at the festival. Walrod graduated from MSU in 1988 with a degree in electrical engineering. About 10 years ago, Walrod decided to transition to working halftime as an engineer and halftime as an artist.
Walrod sold his assemblage art sculptures at the festival. Assemblage art is “a fairly unusual art form,” according to Walrod. He takes found objects — usually recycled things and old material that would typically be discarded — and turns them into 3D sculptures.
Some of his pieces on display included a dog with a camera for a head and a fly with mechanical red lights for eyes.
“It’s actually very rewarding to see people so enthusiastic about my work,” Walrod said.
Audrey Aldridge runs Cotton Rose Studio and weaves hanging artworks by hand while working on her Ph.D. in computer science at MSU.
This was Aldridge’s second year selling artwork at the festival, but she has expanded from one booth to two booths this time around.
“It’s really rewarding to see people’s faces when they find a piece they really connect with, and it’s really exciting just to see them appreciating what I like to do as a stress reliever,” Aldridge said, laughing nervously.
Keats Lewis is the overseeing chair for the Artisan’s Village. She initially became involved with the SAAC through the scholarships awarded to her during her time as a student at MSU.
Lewis said that she particularly encourages MSU students to take part in the festival.
“We love it when students come; it’s such a great opportunity for them to meet local artists, for students themselves to have booths, to get Christmas presents for their parents — especially with it being toward the end of the year,” Lewis said.
As for next year, Juliette Reid, programming coordinator for the festival and the Starkville Area Arts Council, said there was not an exact date announced just yet, but she hopes it will be at the tail-end of October again. 
“We are hoping to announce that either late December or early January,” Reid said.