Uptown Normal's annual arts extravaganza – the Sugar Creek Arts Festival – returns tomorrow and Sunday, with 149 booths worth of paintings, photography, ceramics, sculpture, glass, fiber and jewelry offered by artists from all over the Midwest.
The Festival opens Saturday, with art, food and music from 10 am to 5 pm, and then starts up again on Sunday, opening at 11 am and closing at 4 pm.
Artists’ booths center around North Street and Beaufort between Fell and Linden, snaking around the new traffic circle in the middle of Uptown. See the McLean County Arts Center’s map of all the goodies here, including food vendors on the south-east side of the circle.
Musical acts will be stationed at North Street and Broadway, with performers ranging from the Sugar Creek Cloggers to Southside Cindy & the Sliptones and the Sally Weisenburg Trio. It's always nice to have a little musical accompaniment as you select your art!
Of special note is how Babbitt’s Books is participating this year. On Saturday, during the Festival, poet Kathleen Kirk will offer guidance in making collages (collage poems or bookmarks) from “Things Found in Books.” Kathleen says that materials will be provided. “Meaning glue, cardstock, my fabulous wheel of trim scissors, and actual things found in books we receive at Babbitt's.” She invites all comers to “Cut stuff up, glue it together, and take it home. Free! (And the books are cheap if you want some!)”
She’s also thoughtfully provided examples.
This year, not only can you shop for all kinds of art made by other people, you can make your own. What a deal!
And it's glue sticks, Brian says, so there's no danger of gluing your fingers together!
ReplyDeleteAnd I hope the weather is just like today!
I'm pretty sure I won't be back in time to participate in the collage-making, so I hopehopehope you will do this again. I wanna make a bookmark collage!
ReplyDeleteI will be back in time for your poetry reading, Kathleen, so I will just see you then. Bring a bookmark to show me, okay?