Watsonville arts festival to pay tribute to Selena
WATSONVILLE >> Since its inception in 2019, Arte del Corazon has showcased what Watsonville has had to offer in terms of art. For the third year in a row, the collective will host an arts festival Saturday that does just that, with the centerpiece being a tribute to the legendary late Tejano pop singer Selena.
“Selena: Dreaming of You” will take place at Romo Park with music, vendors and art galore.
Arte del Corazon Director Monica Galvan said the organization started four years ago as a venue for artists to promote their work.
“Our goal is to provide opportunities for artists to sell their work, to be able to create their work and showcase their work here in Watsonville,” she said.
The organization hosts monthly Mercado Artesanales, or art markets, where local artists get to sell their work. It also hosted an event last year called “Frida Por Vida” that paid tribute to the famed Mexican painter Frida Kahlo and featured live performances, a station to create flower crowns similar to those worn by the artist and a Frida Kahlo lookalike contest.
This year, Arte del Corazon will be returning with an event paying tribute to another Latina icon: Selena Quintanilla-Perez, one of the most popular Tejano singers of the early to mid '90s. Recording under the sole name Selena, she amassed four straight No. 1 hits on Billboard's U.S. Latin chart in 1994 alone, won a Grammy for her 1993 album “Selena Live!” and achieved a dedicated following.
Her life was cut short at the age of 23 when she was shot and killed by the former president of her fan club in 1995, but Selena remains one of the most influential and beloved Latina singers of all time. Her life has been the subject of numerous documentaries, the
1997 biopic “Selena” starring Jennifer Lopez and a biographical series that ran on Netflix from 2020 to 2021.
Galvan said Arte del Corazon members are huge Selena fans and wanted to do an event to pay tribute.
“We have been enamored with her for years at the art collective, just her ability to be really strong in her professionalism with her creative career as a designer and musician,” she said.
The first “Dreaming of You” festival, named after one of Selena's most popular songs, was held in April 2021 in downtown Watsonville. Last year, it was held at the Slough Brewing Collective. This year's installment will bring it back to downtown with a festival in Romo Park.
The festivities will include an art market with more than 20 vendors, food trucks, live performance by Mariachi Illusion and DJ Moi from Radio Bilingüe spinning Selena's hits. This year will also mark a return of both the lip sync contest and Selena lookalike contest.
“Both events we had last year were very successful,” said Galvan. “We had so much fun, we had a lot of participants, and this year we're gonna do it largerscale, so that's super exciting.”
Galvan hopes the event will bring the community together and allow them to meet new artists.
“That's kind of why we started these,” she said. “We felt that a lot of people in Watsonville really didn't know who artists were, and the biggest thing for us is to get artists to connect with our community members and increase the value for arts here in Watsonville.”
The free event will take place from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday at Romo Park, 335 Main St., Watsonville. For information on Arte del Corazon, visit Artedelcorazon.com.