Senseless Acts of Beauty

So before there were camping and hiking in the Olympic Peninsula, there were beer and circus acts at Artopia. The event was a free street fair and arts exhibit showing emerging talent in dance, theater, art and music. You kind of just showed up in the area and walked around, and art just kind of happened to you. There was life-drawing in the comic book store, interpretive dance in the molding bottling plant, music in the parking lot, interactive cello performance in the warehouse, power-tool racing in the alley, and beer and wine everywhere.

I think that wandering the dusty streets and alleyways of Georgetown in sweltering heat and encountering random displays of theater and art reinforced our appreciation for each other's companionship. Artopia was such a free-form experience, you had to be in the mind-set to enjoy it openly, which I think is something I tend to forget in the daily grind to rush places, meet deadlines, procure parking, pay bills, clean house, and find my place in the grown up world.

Eff 'em Danno!

Fantagraphics Comic Book Store

Flowers in the vending machine graveyard

Cello

A serving of "Scumbo" I was handed as a promotion for a play being performed later that evening (actually just lime jello)

Probably my favorite part was the dancing in the old brew house, because the building was so gorgeous with the yellows and greens and all the lovely textures from the rust and mold and peeling paint. We happened to walk in just as the dance was beginning, and the dancers would move about the structure while the crowd kind of angled itself around to watch and maintain the "stage." There were a couple times where I found myself so enthralled by the building that I would be stuck in the middle of the dance space because the whole crowd had left me alone and the dancers were spinning around me. Truly magical.

Peeling ceiling of the old brewery house

Beautiful rusty stairs

Members of BQ Dance

More dancers