pARTy in the Park

You’d think with all the months of organizing this I’d have spent some time here telling y’all about it. Alas, it is the classic case of the shoemaker’s shoes. So here we are a few days out, Saturday June 20th is the big day. Somehow 100 exhibitors a dozen or so bands and our friends at Post Road Diner, Coromandal, Archie Moore’s, Fountainhead, Rolling Cones, Kettle Korn, Luncheria Valencia, BJ Ryan’s, Tuscan Oven, Fat Cate Pie Co. and YumNuts will be on hand. Over the next few days I’ll be cross posting here and updating the Arts Festival web site. It’s here; www.norwalkarts.org/pip/, a short click away.

The big question everyone keeps asking is why do an arts festival now? In this economy? Well, it’s precisely because of this economy that we decided to reach out to our local creative economy peeps, and put on a show. And what a show it’ll be. One mile of arts, music, food and fun along side the Norwalk River, and in our version of central park, Mathews Park. Two stages, a construction site, a playground, and every kind of artistic endeavor except for fire breathing antelopes are going to be on hand for the very local, very cool event. So come out and support your local painter, sculptor, guitarist, violinist, photographer, designer, chef, film maker, poet, and labyrinth maker. Okay there’s tons more artistic endeavors, and performers of all kinds, but that’s why we say check it out. Or ask questions here in the comments.

But let me spend some time about the local creative economy for a bit. Norwalk is lucky to have great cultural institutions like The Maritime Aquarium, Lockwood Mathews Mansion, Stepping Stones Children’s Museum and the Center For Contemporary Print Making all within a mile of each other. They are our anchor participants in this festival. And we are lucky to have a great multipurpose trail that links these great institutions together. And soon there will be 95/7 and a new way to drive from West Ave into North Water Street. This is Norwalk’s future. One that we want to see germinate the people on the street enjoying a great urban park and an exciting dining and entertainment district. Everything that we’ve sought to do on the Arts Commission has been to engage the pubic with Art and artists with the public. From the art and architecture walks, art in storefront windows, poster contests and concerts, we’ve been actively promoting Norwalk as a thriving cultural scene. Let’s not also forget the historic stuff, whether its Mill Hill, the Norwalk Museum, the Mansion of course, but all the great lectures and tours that the Norwalk Historic Commission, the Norwalk Historic Society and the Norwalk Preservation Trust has put on.

It’s a great time to be exploring Norwalk these days. All of these artists, performers, and cultural institutions exist on donations, member drives, sales and gigs. We’ve been tracking how that has a financial impact on our local economy. And for pARTy in the Park we will be finishing up our cultural assessment survey. Or rather, we’ll be unveiling it. I’ll post the survey link soon, but we want to know what you think about everything arts and culture in greater Norwalk.