Wells St, Old Town, and Midsommarfest

What: Wells St. Art Festival
Where: Old Town
How Much: $7
How to get there: Red line to Clark and Division, walk to Goethe and Wells

It was a nasty day in the neighborhood yesterday. Pouring rain in the morning meant I was off to a late start. That proved to be a good thing, however, as I spent Friday night in Milwaukee seeing my supremely talented friend Kim perform with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. Arriving home at 2 am derailed my plans to be up and about at 8. I took advantage of the ugly weather and finished a quiz for my summer online statistics class before heading out. 90%, what what!!
By the time the train reached old town, the rain had mostly abated. The stroll from the train station to the fair took me through a farmer's market. At the gates, they were asking for a $7 donation. I asked what the donation goes to and was told that it pays for the set up and general maintenance of the show. It also benefits the Old Town Merchants and Residents association. I prefer to donate to fairs that go to help schools or charities, but in many cases you don't have a choice.

The Wells Street Fair is, in the words of Bart, "extensive and expensive". The booths seemed to go on and on and on and on and on. And the art ranged from $25 for a 4x5 print to upwards of $6k for some huge original pieces. This is the 36 year for this particular fest, and the art is juried, meaning it is judged and the best artists receive ribbons.

The jewelry was also impressive, though all out of my price range. If you can afford to live on Wells St, you can probably afford to buy some of this stuff. Regardless of my purchasing power, everything was beautiful- it appears they accept nothing but the best. The music was another story- over on a stage tucked behind some buildings, bands played to tiny crowds of people who were looking for a place to sit down and eat. I managed to catch "Jaktripper".

Speaking of food, the selection was impressive, from small booths set up by local eateries to your normal fair vendors. Something I saw in abundance was "chocolate dipped cheesecake on a stick". Excuse me? Who in the world needs to eat anything like this? It's right up there with "deep fried snickers on a stick". Why must it be on a stick? Are we really that lazy?

Just kidding, all of that is a cover for the fact that I desperately want to eat chocolate covered cheesecake on a stick. Even if it is disturbingly uniform. I stuck with a small slice of thin crust cheese pizza and a diet coke instead.

After an good hour and a half at the Wells St. Art Festival, it was time to walk over to the Old Town Art Festival. I had never really explored Old Town before, and it is BEAUTIFUL. Old Town even smells good. The houses there remind me of the most beautiful parts of Boston. I want to own one of these someday. You know, after I pull myself out of the crippling debt I am about to incur going to grad school.

The walk brought us to the Old Town Art Festival. After a look and a walk around, I decided this fest was basically a smaller version of the Wells Street Fest and I opted not to spend another $7 donation going in. My friend and co-worker Jake says this is his favorite fest of the summer, but... I'm not sure why. Getting lost on the way to Clark St. also reveled the Party at St. Mike's, which was still setting up for the night.


Old Town Entrance

After that it was a long bus ride on #22 to get to the Andersonville Midsommarfest.What: Andersonville Midsommarfest
Where: Andersonville
How Much: $5 donation
How to get there: Clark St. bus #22


The Andersonville Midsommarfest is capital-G Gay. And I don't mean that in the commonly accepted slang way. I mean that the fest takes on the flavor of it's surrounding community, which has a large LGBT component. Everywhere you looked there were gay and lesbian couples and groups of friends hanging out (or letting it all hang out, in some cases).
There were jewelry and clothing vendors tucked in among the gay rights tents. I was propositioned more than once to pay $40 to join gay rights groups. Now, normally this is something that I support wholeheartedly. But when I go to a street fest, I'm not really in the mood to fork over my credit card number to some kid on the street with a clipboard. This musical group of two scantily clad ladies was singing to a rapt audience of three poorly supervised children about being "Nasty Girls".

There were drag queens, lots of food choices, and vendors more in the price range of people my age. All of the Clark street businesses were open as well. There were pony rides for the youngins and a "battle of the bands" type stage set up for teenagers to throw down. I was very impressed with those I saw- it takes guts to get up on stage in front of that many strangers. I hope that all their dreams come true and they all become rock stars.

An hour of perusing was about all I could handle at the end of this day. This festival is open until 10 pm tonight, so if you want $3 cocktails and some bare tattooed chests, then head on over.

Today it was all I could do to walk over to the Rogers Park farmer's market and then drive to Trader Joe's. So, I missed the Blues Festival and the Printer's Row literary Festival (although I did watch some of the televised lectures from the latter). If you made it, let me know how it was!

Next weekend, I'm going to try for The Raven on Friday night, the Midsummer Festival on Bryn Mawr and the Chicago Peace Festival on Saturday, and the Custer Street Fair in Evanston on Sunday morning. Then I'll be spending the rest of the day with my dad, because you know, Dads are cool. Who's coming with me?