My Favorite Street Festival

This weekend is the Paseo Festival in the Paseo Art District. I have been coming to this festival since I was a kid. My mom had a booth when she was just starting out as an artist, and I would help her sell things like painted cowboy boots, whimsical rocking chairs and other functional art. Later, when she owned The Blue Moon, an art bar on Paseo Drive, I would help sell art and beer. My parents painted the Paseo Art District Mural at the end of the street and I’ve been doing poetry at Galileo’s for 10 years now.
It’s not like some art districts in other cities but for a long time it was all we had and
with the nurturing of artists and smart business men, its really become an oasis in this city, and well, its my home.

I also love this festival because unlike the downtown Festival of the Arts, this festival still has mostly local artists and musicians. It still feels homegrown. And this year, with Ed, the owner of Sauced, doing the booking for the South Stage, we are really going to see an eclectic mix of amazing local talent. My Tea Kind and Elephant Revival will be playing as well as Justin Witte, Jabee the Beautiful, Edgar Cruz, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey and many others, including little ol’ me. I will be performing poetry at 7pm on Saturday.

Diane Cody, one of the organizers of the Paseo Festival, and a long time friend of mine, wrote this beautiful blog that I wanted to share excerpts of.

“Constructed in 1929, it was the second shopping district built by the brother of the creator of the Plaza, a much larger area located in Kansas City. It boasts stucco buildings and Spanish Colonial architecture.
It has seen many things, and in the seventies filled with artists and hippies, often one in the same, eventually earning a designation as an artist community. It is a soft spot for the creative and edgy in this otherwise conservative town. For me, it harbored the education in art I never completed in college. What better teachers are there than experience and exposure, coffee talk and nurturing by those practicing their passion? This is a community that allows for differences, and in doing so, understands each other….”

“It is these days before a festival when the magic happens. For almost a year ahead, meetings were held, entries sent, musicians booked, artists juried, then accepted or rejected, food vendors scheduled, volunteers sought. This making of an event that attracts thousands annually for three days that will delight and inspire, awe and entertain, is no small effort.
It requires the determination of mission and focus of volunteers with a common goal, when they may have nothing else in common.
It will require eighty trash barrels, hundreds of bags of ice, portable potties, electricians, signs, publicity, name tags, walkie talkies, posters and tee shirts, barricades and securtiy. All tip of the iceberg….A town inside this community will be born. Tents and stages will sprout from asphalt. A time warp of sorts, three days of escape and adventure will manifest.”

I hope to see all of my friends and family this weekend. In our quirky little home.
If you have never been to the Paseo District, it is located basically at 29th and Walker, close to downtown.