BRUNSWICK – The Brunswick Area Arts & Cultural Alliance will present its family arts festival, “Art Free for All” from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 18, on the Brunswick Mall.

Now in its eighth year, this free, hands-on celebration of the arts has workshops in the visual and performing arts. People of all ages can be an artist for a day, trying their hand at pottery, fabric painting, printmaking, twig creations, sculpture, dancing, drawing, fabric bowl casting and collage.

New activities include chalk art, finger puppets, beading, basket making and wearable art. Spindleworks’ new art cart will also make its first appearance at the festival, inviting participants to draw and paint on location.

The festival will be under three tents and feature children’s activities, teen and adult art workshops, and performance. If it’s stormy, the festival will be in Brunswick Junior High School, 65 Columbia Ave.

Entertainers will appear continuously on two stages.

People interested in volunteering should contact the Arts & Cultural Alliance at 798-6964 or at [email protected].

A discussion on the creative economy is scheduled at 11 a.m.

Children’s activities

From 10 a.m. to noon, the children’s tent will have “Chalk Art” with Marilyn Crandlemire; “Painting on T-shirts” with Cathy Worthington, for which people need to bring fabric or a shirt to the festival; face-painting with Susan Weems; and “Playing with Clay” with Nancy Laitala.

From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., this tent will have “Fun with Twigs and Sticks” with Arts Are Elementary and “Wearable Art” with the Merrymeeting unit of the Girl Scouts.

“Banner Weaving” will be 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. with Jamie Silvestri, from ArtWorks, Bath Recreation Department, and “Fabric Bowl Casting” with Bette Spettel will be 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

From noon to 2 p.m. people will be able to draw on location. They can look for the colorful Spindleworks art cart that will be loaded with art supplies for everyone to use.

“Finger Puppets” with Jane Page Conway will be noon to 3 p.m.’ “Plaster Relief Tile” with Cat Schwenk noon to 4.

Nancy Laitala’s “Playing with Clay” and Middy Thomas’ “Hatmaking” will be 1 to 3 p.m. People can sign up for a quick portrait offered by Charlotte Agell in “Lightning Portraits” from 1 to 4.

Art-making tent

The art-making tent’s demonstrations and workshops will include “Basketmaking” with Lisa Ward of Baskets of Joy, limited to 12 participants, ages 8 and older, and a “Felting Demonstration” with Noreen Blaiklock, each from 10 a.m. to noon.

A “Beading Workshop” with The Peer Center will be 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. for kids or adults.

From 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. people can make pencil sketches from a live model in “Life Drawing” with Carlo Pittore.

From 1 to 4 p.m. “Monoprinting” with Anna Hepler and the Bowdoin Art Department will make it possible to create prints based on your own drawings; Bowdoin students will offer a “Pottery Wheel Throwing” demonstration and workshop and Patricia Boissevain of One ME Prevention will present “Expressive Wire Sculpture.”

Performance stages

Bandstand performers will be: Apple Scruffs, Bath rockers, in a Beatles tribute, 10 a.m.; Cathy Downing and the Bath Municipal Jazz Band at 11; The Ladybugs – Sharon Pyne, Toki Oshima and Tamora Goltz – at noon; Studio 48 music students at 1; the Blues Buzzards, blues and rock originals, at 2; and A Band Called Stella at 3.

The gazebo will have guitarist Carter Ruff, 10:30 a.m.; theater performances with Al Miller, 11:30; kids’ songs, love songs, ballads and blues with Kat Logan, 12:30 p.m.; Two for Tea – Randy Lindsey and Paula Suttle, 2:30 p.m.; and Family Music Makers Hope Hoffman, Maggie Robinson and Pat Cannon offer fun songs and activities for families, 3:30.

Lawn performances will be by Gemini Dance Company, a teen dance company, 10 a.m.; Shotokan Karate Academy, 11 a.m., 12:30 p.m. and 2; Dr. Dick’s Puppets at 1 p.m. and strolling mime Kay Mann, 2 to 3:30.