As Easton bustled with Garlic Fest crowds, Lafayette College’s second annual Fall Arts Festival offered a vibrant counterpoint: a four-day celebration of creativity that blended music, performance, community arts organizations and interdisciplinary collaboration.
“This allows us to all come together and share what we’ve been doing,” said Marta Kepka, the director of art marketing. “The entire campus community can learn about our enthusiasm and what we have to offer.”
Co-organized by Ty Furman, an arts director, Rico Reyes, director of galleries and special collections and Kepka, the festival was created to answer the need they felt to celebrate and share the many facets of the arts.
Kepka said that the art community at Lafayette “tends to be a little bit spread apart” with the art building locations down the hill and across the main campus.
This year saw the addition of the Community Arts Fair, where local arts organizations and student groups set up booths in the center of the arts campus, offering everything from poetry writing and face painting to potting plants with LaFarm.
“We all acknowledge that face painting isn’t our calling, but it makes you feel like a part of the community, like a normal person,” said Santiago Brousset ‘27, a festival volunteer.
Furman said that the festival connected “Easton arts organizations, Lafayette and the community as sort of a triad.”
“There’s lots of images that are not as positive about a college on a hill being exclusive,” Furman said. “We just desperately want to say, ‘No, that’s not the case.’ People are welcome on campus. They’re welcome in art spaces.”
Beyond the fair, the festival’s packed schedule included a concert by Celtic singer Julie Fowlis — famous for the opening song in Disney’s “Brave” — a gallery opening, a poetry scavenger hunt and a performance by Latin Music Quartet Rio Bossa.
One gallery exhibit, curated by Eva Di Oro of Allentown’s Soft Machine Gallery, focused on environmental themes and incorporated recycled materials into sculptures.
“I chose artists who use discarded objects and trash,” Di Oro said. “It’s important for art students to see work that’s relevant to all disciplines.”
Artist Lydia Ricci, one of Di Oro’s featured artists, reflected on her sculptures made from scraps collected over decades.
“I wouldn’t call it hoarding, more like collecting,” she said. “It started as anxiety management and became a narrative about personal and societal movements.”
Fellow artist James Maurelle described his work as a “love of labor and of hands,” referencing his sculptures honoring tennis legend Althea Gibson and themes of diaspora.
“It’s a great space,” he said of the gallery. “There’s a lot of life. Great energy.”
Furman said that the arts in Allentown and Bethlehem get more visibility in the Lehigh Valley.
“We know there’s some awesome stuff in Easton, so we wanted to invite them to come here,” Furman said.
“The arts community in the Lehigh Valley region is really vibrant, and we just need to amplify it,” Reyes said.
A correction was made on Oct. 23, 2025: A previous version of this article misspelled the last name of Marta Kepka.