Local Success Story: Chris Alvarado

Chris Alvarado is a local musician, guitar maker and past recipient of the VSW Artist of the Year Award. A staple of the thriving music scene, Alvarado has made Walton County his home and his passion, one he shares through music as well as instruments themselves.

What makes the arts scene in Walton County unique is, as he describes it, “the fact that we live in these little towns but have an artist community that rivals that of a big city, a place where we all make our living doing art. Visit South Walton helps showcase what we have besides the beaches. It means a lot to have that exposure. As a musician elsewhere, you have to travel a lot. Here, people come to you.” He reminisces about playing a festival in Dallas where many in the crowd recognized him and assumed he must live there—but then realized they knew him from seeing him play while they were visiting our area. During the past year and a half in particular, Alvarado noticed an increase in musicians locally, due to outdoor spaces and venues where they could play shows safely.

He also finds that Walton County is a place where both locals and visitors put down roots beyond what he sees in most beach vacation spots. “When people come here, they’re open to new experiences; that’s something they’re looking for. If they find something that moves them, they’ll support it, and they’ll come back and keep supporting.” It’s different in that way. “It has an open, community feel. The vast majority of artists here have been here over a decade,” he notes, which can also be said of many visitors who come back year after year. “Once you’re here, you become a local very quickly. We’ve managed to hold onto that sense of what makes this feel like a special small town even as it grows, and artists are a really big part of that. Most galleries here you walk into, you’ll actually meet the artist. And they want to meet you—there’s no sense of exclusivity.”

As for what made him decide to make Walton County his permanent home, Alvarado says “I don’t know that I could do what I do for a living if I wasn’t doing it here,” adding that the same is true for many other artists and those beyond the artist community, as well. “We’re lucky that South Walton understands it’s about the people and not just the sand: the community and those intangible experiences, that sense of belonging, are what draw people here. They spotlight that and celebrate it.”

What it means to be an artist here is to have a life that encompasses both living and making a living. “We have a thriving community of visual artists, musicians, chefs, business owners…we love our visitors, but when they’re gone, we’re still hanging out together. Most of us, even bartenders, left jobs elsewhere and moved to South Walton because we wanted to be able to do what we were doing without sacrificing everyday quality of life. It’s a really special place.”