Artist Statement
ABOUT THE PARADE: EVERYONE IS ALWAYS INVITED TO MAKE A LANTERN AND WALK IN THE PARADE!
May 20th 2023 from 7-11pm
The Atlanta Beltline Lantern Parade is is the mothership of our lantern parades. In 2010, the Krewe of the Grateful Gluttons answered a call for proposals from Art on the Atlanta Beltline with the idea of a lantern parade where everyone is invited to make a lantern and participate, like Mardi Gras Day marching down the Beltline. At the time, the Beltline Eastside Trail was a creepy dirt path behind the dumpsters. Our first lantern parade in 2010 drew a spirited 400 participants, and zero spectators. By 2019 the parade was drawing an estimated 70,000 in spectators and participants, and became a beloved Atlanta tradition. The Krewe builds and performs giant lantern puppets and hosts lantern workshops. We are always astounded by the amazing lanterns people bring to the parade! Atlanta’s got game.
Artist Bio
Chantelle Rytter is a parade artist best known for founding the Atlanta BeltLine Lantern Parade with the Krewe of the Grateful Gluttons, of which she is the proud Captain. Chantelle has created a family of annual lantern parades based in community participation over the last ten years in Sandy Springs, Midtown, and Hilton Head Island. Chantelle grew up in Baltimore and studied integrative arts at Penn State University. She lived in New Orleans for ten years and fell under the spell of parade culture and the notion that creative play can be a civic gift. Chantelle founded Krewe of the Grateful Gluttons in New Orleans in 1999 to lure her Atlanta friends to Mardi Gras in hopes they would fall in love with parading. They did. The Krewe of the Grateful Gluttons are the Gnomes in the Inman Park Parade, the giant Skeletons of Little Five Points, and the puppeteers of all the giant lantern puppets. The Krewe’s tag line is “Advocating grown-up playtime since 1999”.