stART in the Park was HUGE!

I'm happy to say that after three and a half hours on my feet and out in the sun, I didn't get a sunburn. (Good thing I wore a hat and a long sleeved shirt.)

Every time I use my new camcorder, I learn something new. Today I learned that I need a windscreen for the built in mic when I'm outdoors. Very little of the audio tracks on the video I shot are usable because of the wind noise. But I'll figure out some uses for it...

Gadzooks! That place was absolutely mobbed! I kept running into all sorts of people everywhere I turned. Among many others, there was Brian Goslow, Brendan Melican, Gary Rosen, Jason and Claudia Snell, 4-Rilla and Ms Crystal, Kaz Gamble, Andrea Ajemian, Mike Benedetti, Bruce Russell, Duncan Arsenault, Tracy Foley, Mauro DePasquale, and a whole bunch of blog readers all over the place.

The food court lined the right hand side of the path into the park, and featured a wide range of goodies from veggie to full blown cholesterol carousels to pure sugar spun into cotton candy.

Snow Ghost and Multimedia Mike chose some fine cuisine from the Buddha Hut stand. I had snacked earlier on some french fries while catching up on old times with Brian Goslow.

But food wasn't the main attraction today, as the endless tables and tents featured a never ending range of the most delicious artwork I've seen in one place in a lo-o-o-o-ong time.

And it seemed like music kept popping up all over the place when you least expected it.

An impromptu audition got taped by Kaz (on the right, under the tent), while Claudia Snell caught the low shot from the left. This was Ned Needle (although I should have written it down, I think that's what they said his name was) singing a song he was making up on the spot called "Worcester Love". It was a great demonstration of instant songwriting, and Kaz got the whole thing on tape.

Only a minute or two later, there was a one man band bottleneck blues guitar player singing up at the other end of that row with a sign that said, "Have Blues Will Travel". I thought he was so good, I didn't even think about getting a picture or shooting video of the guy. Frankly, I was pretty much overwhelmed already by all the artistic talent that had gathered in that park.

This whole day just blew me away!

The HollyWoo crew "flashed their dubs" for this picture.

Right next door was the HBML tent, and right around the corner was Doug Chapel's Action Geek tent. In between and out in all directions were artists of almost every style, genre, and medium from blacksmithing to beer bottle adornment, acrylics to zeitgeist, and oils to spoils.

Worcester has so many talented people, that it's truly wonderful!

The next one will be the main event in September: ...stART on the Street.