The Black Swamp Arts Festival was very different from an ordinary art gallery. I noticed differences from the people, to the events, and just the atmosphere in general. The differences began with the vast number of people who attended. There were about 140 artists and over 60,000 visitors. This did not surprise me since it did cover about majority of downtown Bowling Green. There were all types of people; people who were tall, short, skinny, bigger, and more. There were people of all ages who attended which made it seem even more like a real festival, which it was. It just seemed so hard to believe that something so big like that could happen in such a small town.
The spacing was different in itself. There was a lot more space than the gallery first of all, which gave each artist more room for their work. Since there was more room, there were ultimately more artists. When I went to the first gallery it was very quite and spacious between artists. Some of the artists displayed their artwork in tents which was a lot more spacious for their many works. There were also very few artist in the Color: African American Artists and there were only a few pieces per artist. Things were so much different at the Black Swamp Art Festival than the usual art gallery.
A festival in the American Heritage dictionary is a programmed series of cultural performances, exhibitions, or competitions. This arts fest was very cultural and it applied to all different types of people. There were people with Black Swamp fest T-shirts on, babies, younger children, and people with dogs, people with piercings, couples, people wearing cowboy hats and older people. There was also youth art, so that younger children could be influenced by art as well. The children had all types of activities such as face painting, tissue flowers, hat making and tie dye shirts. There was a huge variety of people who attended the arts festival.
I also took note to the whole atmosphere in general. There wasn’t much garbage on the ground; as a matter of fact it was very cleanly for there to be so many people in one general area. There was some security, but not very much. The day was pretty gloomy, cold and a bit rainy, but it did not stop the show from happening. This is where the rainy day fund came in handy, since it did in fact rain. There were also over 50 performing artists that attended and performed at the arts festival. I didn’t personally see them myself since I went late on Sunday, but from what I hear the performances were phenomenal. There were just so many things to do it would just blow your mind at how much you could try to get to in one day. That’s probably why it went on for three days.
While standing in the middle of a huge crowd during the Black Arts Swamp Festival, I realized that there were so many different types of people. There was such a variety of people that it was hard to put them into categories. The one thing that I could say that we could all possibly have in common is our love for art. I found it amazing that art is this powerful that it could bring all types of people together to talk and have a good time together without acknowledging each others differences and just to look at what is in front of them and instead look at what we all have in common. Art is a very important part of life, and from my going to the Black Arts Swamp Festival, I realized that it is something that promotes unity.
