Raw States
WE Fest (William Edmondson Arts & Culture Festival)
Nashville, TN · Arts & Culture
- When
- October 31, 2026
- Where
- William Edmondson Homesite Park & Gardens · Nashville · TN
- Cost
- Not confirmed
- Status
- Approximate: based on past editions, not announced yet
WE Fest is a free art fair at the William Edmondson Homesite honoring sculptor William Edmondson, the first African American artist to receive a solo exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art. It features an art and craft fair of Black artists, a mainstage with music and spoken word, and a kids zone, entering its fifth year in 2026. Organizers describe it as the only festival in the country dedicated to Edmondson's legacy. Prior editions ran the last Saturday of October.
The history within reach
One of the wealthiest women in America built an Italianate villa with a private art gallery, a bear house and a water tower.
WE Fest is a free outdoor art fair on the former homesite of William Edmondson, the first Black artist to have a solo exhibition at MoMA and Edgehill's best-known historical resident.
Built as a silent cinema with an orchestra pit, it housed the Grand Ole Opry for two years in the mid-1930s before the show moved downtown.
George Gruhn turned identifying old instruments into a discipline, writing the reference books that dealers and auction houses still use to date a guitar by its tuners and bracing.
Owen and Harold Bradley bought a house on Sixteenth Avenue and put a war-surplus Quonset hut in the back garden as a studio.