Festival attracts a variety of artists and artisans
The second full weekend in January is reserved for the Cape Coral Art Festival and Market Place.
The event is a decades-long, time-honored tradition and many art lovers look forward to it each year.
This year marks the art festival’s 40th year. It will be held on this weekend, Jan. 11-12, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the South Cape.
Celebrate all forms of artwork and check out more than 300 vendors from around the world, including ceramic, digital, drawing, fiber, glass, graphics, jewelry, metal works, mixed media, paintings, photography, sculpture, wearables and woodcraft work.
One of the artists you’ll meet is Linda Caristo of Caristo Jewelry Designs. She has been a vendor for the past three years in a row and for eight years off and on.
Caristo says she enjoys showing her artwork at the festival because of Cape Coral’s diverse population and appreciation for high-quality artwork.
She is a full-time professional jeweler with more than 30 years of experience. Caristo is a native of western North Carolina and her designs are heavily influenced by nature and the styles of the Arts and Crafts Movement, Art Nouveau and Art Deco eras.
“I love vintage jewelry,” Caristo said. “I love it, love it, love it.”
She also loves gemstones.
“I’ve always been a rock hound and I’ve always been inspired by them,” Caristo said. “It is who I am.”
She specializes in the translucent Plique a Jour enamel technique. The enamel resembles stained glass windows in jewelry
The beautiful pieces are very unique and eye-catching.
Caristo learned the Plique-a-Jour enamel technique from Russian artist Valeri Timofeev who helped restore some of the Fabergeé eggs in Russia.
“I must have been the last person to get into that class,” she said. “People came in from all over the country to take that class. His work is now in the Smithsonian.”
Timofeev originally discouraged Caristo from using the glass and wire technique in jewelry because of its complex fragile nature. But Caristo was determined to figure it out. Instead of using the glass enamel, she figured out a way to use a more durable resin based enamel utilizing the same surface tension technique. The resin is placed in hand-pierced cell designs instead of wires, which makes the piece more structurally sound.
The main thing Caristo and other artists said they liked the most about the Cape Coral Art Festival is that the festival organizers really listen to the artists’ opinions.
“And it’s becoming a more high-quality art show,” she said. “They want to improve the quality of the event.”
“They also actively strive to keep the costs of doing this event as low as possible in the hopes of attracting many seriously good artists that otherwise would not apply.”
Caristo will have something for everyone at all price points.
“I’ve been doing this for almost 40 years,” she said. “Art is my life.”
Jen Callahan is this year’s festival poster artist. She has also been a vendor since 2013.
“It’s an annual event everyone looks forward to,” she said. “The best part is all of the customers and supporters of art in Cape Coral.”
“You can go with girlfriends, and go with family.”
Callahan is a mixed media artist whose artwork is a combination of watercolor and technique on canvas.
She uses water-based paints and combines painting techniques between watercolor and acrylics and enjoys experimenting with different painting surfaces and styles.
Callahan likes to paint things that make her happy.
“The bright colors do give off a sense of happy,” she said.
Her mom was also an artist.
“And she pushed me to think outside of the box and go with the color I see in my head and to put it down on paper.”
Callahan is known for her turtle paintings. She also loves to paint mermaids and birds.
“I’m so excited they picked the mermaid for the poster,” she said.
This is Callahan’s third year being selected as a poster artist for the festival.
Photographer Kyle Wilson has been selling his photographs at the Cape Coral Art Festival from 2017 to 2020 and again in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Wilson enjoys the location and how convenient it is to stay at the Holiday Inn Express in downtown Cape Coral.
He takes photos of rural Americana and things that are left behind like abandoned or forgotten buildings and places.
“I try to take back roads whenever I can and I always have my camera with me,” he said. “You just never know what you’re going to find.”
“I think there’s beauty in the decay. That’s what I’m all about.”
Wilson is entirely self-taught and works in High Dynamic Range photography (HDR), which enables the photographer to capture and display the full range of light that can be realized by the human eye. Wilson takes multiple exposures of the same scene and then blends the exposures to create the final photograph. He has his photos dye sublimated into metal that gives them incredible depth, clarity and luminescence.
Learning this technique coincided with a move to a more rural part of North Carolina.
“I started seeing a lot of rural Americana – rusty old trucks, abandoned barns, farmhouses, industries left behind,” he said. “And those two things exploded in my brain.”
Wilson enjoys doing art shows and tries to do about 35 a year.
“It’s about making connections through art because I have so many people come in and say that barn reminds me of Pop Pop’s barn or my father taught me to drive in a truck like that,” he said. “You’re not going to get that selling on Etsy or your website. You’re not going to hear that.”
Wilson sees his art as preserving history and a way of life.
“There is a lot of nostalgia in my booth. I get to explore on the weekdays and share with you all on the weekends.”
These artists will be in the Premier Artist section in front of the Holiday Inn Express. The artists in these sections received the highest jury scores.
The Premier Artist area is located in front of the Holiday Inn Express on both sides of the median along Cape Coral Parkway, from Del Prado to S.E. 15th Ave.
For more information on Kyle Wilson, visit leftbehind.zenfolio.com.
For more information on Jen Callahan, jencallahanartstudio.com.
For more on Linda Caristo, caristojewelry.com.
More information: capecoralartfestival.com.