Visiting the Southport Art Fest!
The city of Chicago provides a ton of opportunities to get into the art scene, and a really great one that happens every year is the Southport Art Fest. It’s a takeover of a block of Southport Avenue in the Wrigleyville neighborhood, and it’s filled with booths and showcases for all kinds of art. I think that an event like the Southport Art Fest is a perfect example of all the really cool cultural things going on in this city!
I come from a small rural town in Michigan. As a result, I often did not have a ton of opportunities to experience different kinds of art, let alone artistic expressions in general as I was growing up. Being in this city for the past two years while studying at DePaul has offered me so many more opportunities for art related experiences. In my opinion, Chicago’s vast cultural diversity and all of the events that come with it is a huge advantage to the city, and in turn is a huge advantage for students at DePaul.
With this event in particular, I thought the prime advantage was all of the opportunities to pick up a piece of art from local artists. The main showcases at the Southport Art Fest were works from various artists in a ton of different styles. By the time I was halfway through, I had already found a few different artists who had a style that I thought was really impressive. The largest majority of pieces were paintings, but there really was a great variety of mediums to choose from with impressive examples of each.
One of the main exhibits that the event was highlighting was the glass blowing booth. Unfortunately they were still setting up when I arrived, but the items that were already made were truly impressive. They had pieces made by professional glass blowers for sale, but you also had the option to participate in a class and create your own piece. On top of the impressive physical art, the musical performances were really special as well. The two headliners for this year’s fest were a 90’s cover band called The Dead Tamagotchis and Manny Torres, a singer who was on American Idol!
I was a huge fan of this event. As I mentioned earlier, I really haven’t had much experience with art showcases and the like. I have found a huge increase in opportunities for these types of things since I started attending DePaul, and I have to thank the city of Chicago for providing them!
~Jeff