The Vibe:

It was certainly a beautiful day for an art festival. Usually I go to the spring Bayou City Art Festival in Memorial park, but this year for whatever reason I saw an email about a volunteering opprotunity, and I made the effort to volunteer for a morning shift.

The festival was set up right at city hall with the McKinney St. 1-10 exit being completely closed off. Many of the artists were familiar, and although I volunteered to be on artist relief, all I ended up doing was a lot of walking around and looking at art.

The check in process was very disorganized, and I didn’t really feel as though much thought was put into the volunteer process. It was all very informal, unprepared, and chaotic. If it were me, I would have organized the volunteer check in process very differently. There would have been a line for groups and individuals broken out by alphabetical order on the groups.

If I volunteer again, it will definitely be with another person. I thought it would be a good opportunity to meet people, but because so many of the other volunteers were there with groups, and it didn’t actually work out that way. I did meet a great young kid who was thinking he wanted to be a photographer later in life, and I did get to talk to a handful of really cool artists.

Two particular artists that I discovered were Christine Fail and Todd Langley. There were a few others that I was really digging, but I was seriously on the lookout for artists who needed help while I was there.

Fail Jewelry - The only thing I bought this year was jewelry, and I’m quite obsessed wth this artist because her stuff is so simple and functional. I’m not a huge jewelry person, but I bought some cool earrings and a sterling silver ring, that I will probably wear all the time.

Todd Langley - A black and white photographer who shoots with an old plastic camera and film that gives all of the shots a vignette to them that makes them feel other worldly and a little eerie.

Way to ruin a perfectly nice Saturday family morning, guys. SMDH.

One thing I’d like to note is that there were misplaced protesters outside of the festival. I feel like they just heard the word “festival” and then automatically assumed it would be full of drunk people and “sinners,” but once they realized their mistake, felt as though they were already too far committed and just stayed to save face. Well it’s not that kind of festival and I had to laugh. Bayou City Art Festival is a family-friendly affair, and those people just looked like morons. Not that they don’t usually, but this time especially so. Sometimes, humanity, you get it so spectacularly wrong.