Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Exhibit Review: Urban Arts Festival in Dallas

By Marcquis Giddings

Amidst the final lashes of last week's heat wave, those who ventured to the underbelly of Dallas on Saturday had a chance to participate in the final large scale event that ArtLoveMagic, a local artist commune founded in early 2007 by multi-talented artist Michael Lagocki, would produce until next year.

The Urban Arts Festival was held at the South Side on Lamar building starting at 10:00 a.m and ending around 8:00 p.m. Attractions included Make-It-Yourself art sponsored by the Dallas Museum of Art, numerous symposiums, a live Painter’s and ExperimentalArt Stage, and a live music stage where different types of tunes, from classical guitar to spoken word, were performed from noon until 5 p.m.

The atmosphere was family-friendly, with beginners’ drawing lessons, underground comic book artists, face painting, balloon shapers, and impromptu group drumming/percussion circles, which I assume were part of the festival and not just random street drummers.

Nearby, a small campaign booth for 14th year running Texas State Senator Royce West (District 23) treated visitors with a self-portrait paper fans to beat the heat.

Although the event was free, food and drinks weren’t (c’est la vie), along with any paintings, necklaces, leather-bound watches, books, or other things people were peddling.

The festival was smaller than I anticipated, and probably smaller than organizers hoped, though it did provide one of those lively atmospheric outings for families, bored kids, and the local/underground art savvy individual. With major sponsors such as Green Mountain Energy and Scion (evidenced by the car in the gallery), it’ll be interesting to see how the future of ArtLoveMagic develops.

ArtLoveMagic’s next event will be held at Titan Comics on the night of November 3rd. More information can be found at www.artlovemagic.com and www.urbanartsfest.com.

This story was submitted by a member of the Pegasus News community.

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