Art Fairs

At nearly ninety degrees, sunny, and brutally humid we saw no reason to shirk our annual opening day duty to the Art Fair. Contrary to general local feelings we look forward to this week all the rest of the year, to our chance to catch up with extended family members who always gather on this day to peruse the art and share in good meals. According to the (supposed) Ann Arbor newspaper, artist attendance is up this year, and, in spite of the heat, the crowds were, well, crowded.

Bright blue skies and wispy clouds were beautiful, but hot.

Interactive art with a somewhat cooling side effect.

Carefully placed, clearly marked, and easily accessed city water, both with fountains and a tap for refilling your own bottle, makes disposable bottles of water unnecessary and is an important step towards the Fair's ultimate zero waste goal.

Rather large and elaborate pinwheels or weather vanes that we always enjoy while waiting to be seated for lunch.

Following directions is not somebody's strong point.

Playing at lunch with his new hopper and box cars.

Mr. B's traveling piano.

I guess there were fewer pictures this year, but the rest of them are in the July 2010 folder.

Townie Party

Look at me journaling in real time. Unbelievable! With the Art Fairs looming just around the proverbial corner the Townie Party was here again and so, being the lifelong townies that we are, we attended. Six years ago we attended the very first Townie Party which consisted, we think we remember correctly, of a few craft booths for the kids, some live music, and maybe an ice cream vendor, all comfortably housed on the part of Ingalls Mall between the alumni building, the MLB, the fountain, and Washington. I don't remember any streets being closed.

We went again right after Calvin was born when it was in its third year and I remember it being only modestly bigger and we hadn't been back since, so you can imagine our surprise upon turning onto North University and finding the street closed and lined with tents while the entirety of Ingalls Mall between North U and Washington was swarming with people, vendors, and art. In its sixth year the Townie Party has really come into its own.

We walked by all the food vendors at first (a very difficult thing to do with Tios staring us right in the eye) and strolled through the Mall meeting with local businesses, politicians, and art councils along the way; the Boy Choir of Ann Arbor and Wild Swan were there, to name two of our favorites, and we also ran into some of our favorite musicians and friends from our more involved (read: pre-baby) years. We also spent some time chatting with the Dexter Chamber of Commerce (after which they dubbed us "that Dexter Family" and referred to us as such whenever we passed them again, a nice compliment to the older couple on my morning run route who has dubbed me "the Dexter girl" after seeing me run into town so often). The space which used to be the whole of the fair was dedicated to the display and sale of school-aged kids' artwork, row after row of booths that ranged from the over-indulgent to the surprisingly talented, all of which was really overpriced (it wouldn't be an Art Fair if it wasn't, would it now).

Calvin's favorite part, as I'm sure you can tell from the pictures, was the craft booth, which has been an integral part of the Party since its inception six years ago. He also collected a number of stickers from the row of obliging businesses and institutions along our way back to the Tios tent for dinner, which we ate while sitting on the steps of Hill Auditorium. In some ways it was like returning home (to campus, that is), and there was something very special about dinner at the foot of the giant from our past. Other than the music, which was painfully too loud and thankfully closer to the beer garden than to Hill, the Townie Party receives an A+ from us.

Project 365, days 190-196

Enjoying a Jag Friday night at the Rolling Sculpture Auto Show in Ann Arbor; on catching a fish, his first time ever, at a backyard wedding; pulling over to watch them mow the wheat fields we often pass when we drive into Ann Arbor; a family of swans that waddled through our yard of all places; finding puddles after a day of rains; look closely and you'll see a hummingbird visiting the bee balm in our butterfly garden; the good looking eggplant growing right in our own veggie garden.

Rolling Sculpture Car Show

There's always something going on during summer evenings in the Ann Arbor area and we almost never find ourselves at a loss for something to do. This Friday night it was the Rolling Sculpture car show that caught our attention. We've made a yearly tradition out of attending this one and it holds more interest for us than our trip to the Auto Show in Detroit because its focus is more on classic cars and even antiques. I actually prefer perusing a collection of model Ts over a bunch of F150s and if I'm going to enjoy a Mustang it will probably be the 64-1/2 or thereabouts.

That being said, the Ann Arbor show does have its share of newer or concept cars, like this Lingenfelter T/A, which was parked between the Mercedes AMG with the gull wing doors on one side and an Audi Spyder on the other. The T/A reminded Jon of a Transformer.

Our vote for favorite car is really up in the air. I loved the 1960s Detroit cop car that had done its duty in Precinct 14 and is now owned by a retired Ann Arbor cop. The car was in great shape, and they had the old siren and light hooked up, something that Calvinw as not much pleased about. I loved all the original paraphernalia he'd collected over the years and put on display with the car.

Check out the stretchers in the back!

We also loved this well equipped Model-T; it had its own method of meal preparation and a car phone (only one of which is in the right context, of course).

And then there was the 1961 Airstream hitched up to a 1960 Cadillac that I would just love to take for a cross country road trip. Can't you just see us cruising down route 66 in this one?

Project 365, days 183-189

A holiday week! A crazy drum circle at the end of the year picnic for music class, a 3rd of July party at our house, water play with Gram, great lunch at Arbor Brewing Company, cooling off at Independence Lake, great dinner at The Jolly Pumpkin, and everything is coming up roses.