Art Beat

Yesterday we braved the 90 degree heat and walked to downtown South Bend for Art Beat 2012. Art Beat is an event held each summer that features culinary, performing and visual artists all from the Michiana area. The Momcat and I actually thought about trying to exhibit our fabric bowls from Prairie Sewn Companion there, but decided that we weren't quite ready for that yet, especially for a show that took place so soon after Orientation.

Looking towards downtown. 

Last year the N-boy and I were quite successful at Art Beat coming home with about six new pieces of art for the house, including urban decay photographs by Stephen Martin for the living room and urban graffiti by CAD for the addition. This year...not so much. We did get one more urban decay piece for the living room, but that was it. It seemed like there was A LOT of jewelry this year. It felt like they expanded the number of artists overall, and maybe they expanded too much too fast.

We ended our adventure down at the culinary artist tent where we each enjoyed a frozen slushy (coffee for me, watermelon for him) from the Purple Porch Co-op. We also got information from them about how the co-op works, as we're looking into getting some of our food there.

 Slushy from locally grown watermelons. 

Overall Art Beat 2012 was a little disappointing, although perhaps some of that can be chalked up to our great success from last year and the oppressive heat. I'm still happy we went though, since it was one of the items on my Summer 2012 Bucket List and I always enjoy the energy that surrounds events that highlight local artists.