A Weekend at the Festival of the Arts

On the first full weekend of June, the city of Grand Rapids, MI holds a three-day festival to celebrate the arts in the community. In 1969, Alexander Calder's great big red steel artwork, La Grande Vitesse, was installed in front of City Hall, people got the idea to create a festival to not only celebrate Calder's art, but everyone's art. And thus, Festival of the Arts was born in 1970. It has since grown into the largest all-volunteer festival of it's kind in the entire nation. The Festival has over 20,000 volunteers and has thousands upon thousands of people attend each year.

And this past weekend, the Epsilon Institute was there, as you may have noticed from the videos we previously posted. Despite the sporadic rain showers and thunderstorms that stalled or temporarily shut down Festival, people still turned out in high numbers to see the great variety in painting, sculpture, performing art, music, food, and so much more. With six stages throughout the city constantly playing music or showcasing dancing, for three days straight, it's impossible to capture the full scope of the event, either through video or pictures. So this photo spread isn't meant to accurately reflect the Festival as a whole. Rather, it's a small snippet of what Festival has to offer all those who attend it.