If you ask longtime Cary residents to recall their most vivid memories of the Lazy Daze Arts & Crafts Festival, they might remember when the Band of Oz manifested cool ocean breezes when they performed beach music in 1984.
They might tell you about the time Hurricane Irene blew through in 2011, forcing the festival’s first cancellation in 35 years.
Or they might laugh about that day in 2014 when organizers brought in a snow machine to beat the legendary late summer heat that has been woven into the festival’s identity.
This August, Lazy Daze will be a memory-making 50th Anniversary in downtown Cary — a celebration of the late founder Jerry Miller’s dream to create a signature event that brings people together and salutes the arts.
For Jerry, a beloved Cary artist who was 93 when he died in 2025, Lazy Daze was a labor of love, and he put his heart and soul into the event every year since launching it in 1977.
This portrait of Jerry Miller, taken by Chief Photographer Jonathan Fredin in front of the Cary Arts Center in 2013, is said to be one of Jerry’s favorite photos of himself.
Those who knew him still can’t envision Lazy Daze without him, but they are grateful for the strong foundation he set that will enable the show to go on for the next 50 years.
Hillsborough artist Katie Hayes remembers standing in her booth at Lazy Daze three years ago, chatting with clients and friends, when a town crier, clad in a bright red jacket, stepped out of a John Deere Gator and began ringing a bell right in front of her.
Jerry Miller surprised printmaker Katie Hayes with a Best in Show award at the 2023 Lazy Daze festival.
“I thought, ‘Man, that’s really loud,’” Katie says. “I couldn’t even hear myself speak.”
Then Jerry Miller, wearing his signature straw hat, strolled over and presented her with a giant prize ribbon complete with a full rosette, proclaiming her the winner of a Lazy Daze Best in Show award for printmaking.
Katie, who has participated in Lazy Daze for five years, owns New South Pattern House in Hillsborough. Cary residents and visitors may be familiar with her work from places like the Peck & Plume restaurant in The Mayton, for which she designed the wallpaper.
“Jerry was so sweet and warm and kind,” she recalls, admitting she was starstruck in the presence of the larger-than-life local celebrity.
A Family Affair
According to town records, in 1977, Cary’s population was 21,763. The Research Triangle Park was just beginning its rise, and no one could have predicted the explosive growth that would transform small, sleepy Western Wake villages into full-fledged cities.
Today, Cary’s population has swelled to about 187,000, and Lazy Daze has grown alongside it, evolving from its humble beginnings as a small, earnest one-day street festival to the modern two-day extravaganza that attracts about 300 artists and over 60,000 art lovers annually.
Julie Miller recalls the early years of Lazy Daze as a rustic, homespun arts festival. She was just 12 years old when her father launched it, and from the beginning it was a family affair.
2005
“My brother, mother, and my dad did most of the work, including going out onto the street and sectioning off the squares designating the booth spaces, numbering them, and getting everything organized,” she says.
Her brother, Jerry “J” Miller, died in 2016, but up until his death, he and his wife Pat played key roles helping with setup and managing the event.
Julie shaped the festival’s history, too, although she didn’t know it at the time.
2013
“As a child, I would sit up and draw all night long,” she recalls. “And one night Dad asked me to draw him a picture of a man asleep under a tree with a dog at his feet, but he never told me what it was for.”
Her drawing became the original Lazy Daze logo, which for years was the festival’s public face, adorning posters, flyers, banners, and even T-shirts.
Roots of Inspiration
As an artist himself, Jerry Miller was a regular on the art show circuit, rarely missing a weekend.
“When we were growing up, he would lug us from show to show,” Julie recalls. “As we got older, we started working at the shows, and sometimes we had three going on the same weekend, so each of us kids covered a different one.”
Those shows taught Jerry how much art can unite a community. A man with deep love for his Cary home, he was inspired to bring that experience to his own town.
In a 2022 interview with Cary historian Peggy Van Scoyoc, Jerry described how Lazy Daze took shape.
Jerry notoriously sketched the layout for the whole event on a scrap of paper while having breakfast at a local restaurant. He convinced Southern National Bank, for which he was a board member, to sponsor the budding festival and his wife, Jean, to help set up.
The fourth weekend of August had little competition from other events, so Jerry decided to lean in to the hot, lazy days of late summer and affectionately title his creation Lazy Daze.
The imagined streetscape placed 10-foot booths along Chatham Street from the corner of Academy down to Walker Street. Each space rented for $10, with Jerry convincing 100 of his friends to participate via a bit of arm-twisting.
“Jean and I would get a 10-foot pole and go out and use it to measure out the booths, mark the street with a red marker, and then number them all,” he said in the interview.
He was careful not to place similar artists next to each other — a practice that continues today.
Original artwork like Lazy Daze Craze by Dianne Rodwell is used on posters, guidebooks, and other materials.
“That worked real good,” he continued. “From then on, I never ever had to beg anybody to come to Cary for the arts and crafts festival.”
In the early days, Jerry and his team, which still primarily consisted of family members, took a low-budget approach to marketing, substituting sweat equity for cash investment.
He painted the words “Arts & Crafts Festival, Cary, North Carolina” on full 4-by-8-foot sheets of plywood and on the morning of the festival, hauled them out to strategic locations on all the roads leading into Cary, leaning them against power poles, trees, and anything else that would support them.
Those rustic signs attracted countless curious travelers passing through and locals alike.
“It was the best thing we did, and also the hardest,” he told Peggy.
Realizing the Goal
Right from the beginning, Lazy Daze gave Cary a financial boost.
“Jerry wanted to bring activity into the downtown area, and he envisioned it as an economic development project,” says Joy Ennis, who served as festival director for two decades and is now general manager of the Downtown Cary Park. “That first year, the proceeds from Lazy Daze went toward purchasing a tent for the Cary Parks and Recreation Department, and it just kind of grew from there.”
The festival’s impact has grown exponentially. Over the years, proceeds have led to the creation of a grants program that has provided funds for amenities like the Cary Town Clock and the Lazy Daze Playground. Over the years, the festival has raised over $1 million for hundreds of local nonprofits.
Lazy Daze has grown by leaps and bounds since its origins in 1977, but its community focus remains.
“Lazy Daze is a great event, and we love it because it’s part of Cary’s history, but it’s also a way for us to give back to the community and support the arts,” says Kris Carmichael, supervisor of the Page-Walker Arts & History Center.
The Town of Cary now handles administrative duties, including artist jurying and recruiting up to 300 volunteers.
In the ’90s, the festival lineup expanded to include a Spring Daze event in April. Held in Bond Park, it is open exclusively to North Carolina artists. Spring Daze has won numerous awards, including the 2004 Regional Event of the Year for North & South Carolina by the North Carolina Association of Festivals & Events.
Lazy Daze has also introduced traditions, like the town crier, a role made famous two decades ago by John Webster, a Canadian who hails from Cary’s sister city of Markham, Ontario, and performs his duties decked out in bright red regalia.
Through the years, Lazy Daze has moved around downtown, toggling between the main streets and the Cary Town Hall campus due to various periods of road construction. In 2015, the Town Hall campus became the permanent home for the two-day event.
Val Taylor received a Best in Show award in 2024 — her first year exhibiting at Lazy Daze.
The site also offers a shady respite from the heat, a feature that Clayton artist Val Taylor appreciates — although at that time of the year, it’s even hot in the shade, she says.
As a photorealist, Val uses colored pencil to create lifelike art. The 2024 Lazy Daze festival was her first time exhibiting there.
Like Katie the printmaker, Val was also surprised when Jerry Miller showed up at her booth in 2024, awarding her a giant rosette.
The experience left her speechless.
“I didn’t even know about the awards until the town crier came by ringing his bell,” she says. “I was on a big high the rest of the day after that.”
That would be Jerry Miller’s last year of presenting the awards.
A Golden Legacy
The 50th-anniversary festival, August 22–23, will showcase over 250 artists from across the country. The event will feature four live entertainment stages, more than 25 food vendors, a beer garden, Lazy Lounge, and Kid Daze events.
Through it all, Jerry Miller’s presence will be felt everywhere.
A plein air artist depicts the scene in front of the Cary Town Hall campus, which is now the permanent home for the two-day event.
A bronze bust of him, complete with his signature straw hat, was unveiled in May 2022 and sits on the Cary Arts Center grounds, recognizing his extensive contributions to the town.
He was a talented artist in his own right, celebrated for his meticulous watercolor and pen and ink illustrations of state and local landmarks. He has presented works of art to US presidents, and last year was awarded The Order of the Long Leaf Pine, the state’s highest civilian honor.
His legacy is an energetic festival that has brought Cary together for a half-century on the hottest weekend of the year, while dodging hurricanes, navigating downtown construction, raising money for nonprofits, welcoming thousands of visitors, and showcasing award-winning art.
And while his wide-ranging contributions had the power to lift up an entire town, sometimes his greatest impact is felt in smaller ways.
Katie treasures the ribbon she won in 2023 and says it inspires her every day, giving her the boost she needs when she feels she’s not good enough.
“I still have it hanging in my studio, and it’s good to have that validation,” she says. “On days when I doubt myself, I feel like Jerry is there reassuring me and telling me, ‘You’ve got this.’”
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