Sunday, April 6, 2008

2008 Deep Ellum Arts Festival drew a healthy crowd

By Laura Seewoester

Every spring Main Street in Deep Ellum shuts down, booths and beer tents go up, and the artists and musicians come in droves to the Deep Ellum Arts Festival. The festival remains one of the main events that keeps people coming back to Deep Ellum year after year, despite the beloved neighborhood's current state of transition. This year seemed much more crowded than last year, although if I remember correctly it was actually snowing during last year's festival.

This year did not disappoint, with a variety of cool art work to look at and buy, a robust line up of local bands and of course the usual $5 beers and fried potato ribbons. Some of the art was musically inspired, some was inexpensive, some more expensive. There was pretty much art to please any palette, and some cool artisan vendors selling jewelry, glass and these cool watches made out of coconut shell. The only disappointment was the seeming lack of local artists. There was of course the Kettle Art booth, booths from Save Deep Ellum and Mokah Coffee, but the majority of artists seemed to be from elsewhere in the state or country. It's possible that I wasn't paying enough attention, or maybe they clustered together all the out-of-towners and I missed the "from Dallas" section of the booths, but every artist we stopped to chat with was nonlocal. I hope I just coincidentally missed our Big D representation. The stages, however, were not lacking in local acts that played solid all afternoon. I think only once I noticed that no one was playing on any of the stages.

The festival also had a BMX area, where BMX bikers and roller bladers had a ramp set up to showcase some of their tricks. They also gave out, like many others, free swag. The best swag I spotted was dog biscuits at the Westdale.com tent, which doesn't seem awesome until you look around and realize just how many people brought their dogs. The Chevron booth was also giving away these cool looking stainless steel travel coffee mugs. I was going to grab one, but I didn't want to A) wait in line, or B) give out my name, number and home address for a free stinkin' coffee mug. There was also a random sectioned off Jeep area. It had a big ramp and cones set up that looked like a driving course, but I never saw anyone driving on it nor did anyone seem to know exactly what the Jeeps were there for. Check back with us in the next day or so for a Pegasus News exclusive video of the festival.

Related stories

• Pegasus News banner stolen by terrorists exclamation point (May 9, 2008)
• Video: Deep Ellum Arts Festival 2008 (April 6, 2008)

See more stories in:

• Arts > Fine Arts > Art and Sculpture
• Arts > Popular Music

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