Reflections of katlupe: The Colorscape Chenango Arts Festival 2021

The Colorscape Chenango Arts Festival 2021 took place this week-end. It was a beautiful day and lots of people turned out on Saturday morning. The Colorscape Chenango Arts Festival has been a yearly event in Norwich since 1994 and takes place the first week-end after Labor Day. It gives people that one last event to look forward to before fall. It is the event for local, and some not so local, artists. There are many different forms of art and it was fun looking at it all. You can purchase from the various artists who have it displayed in their booths which are in both parks, East Park and West Park. The parks are across Broad Street (Rt. 12) from each other in the center of downtown Norwich, NY. The art is judged and awards given.

There was plenty of entertainment through out the day. Such as music, puppet shows, juggler acts, art projects for children to take part in and much more. My street was blocked off so the whole front lawn of my building was used for entertainment. The juggler, Jason Tardy, was performing his show in front of our half of the building. The puppet theater and children's art project tent was in front of the other half where the Chenango Art Council has their offices.

East and West parks are directly across the street from each other in downtown Norwich. South and North Broad Streets did not have to be closed down. Just the street I live on. Traffic was respectful of people crossing the streets and our crosswalks are clearly marked. There was live music all day on both sides of the street. The music was really good and the chairs around the stages was filled most of the day. I am fortunate to have a chair wherever I go since I was using "Jazzy" my mobility chair.

The food court was very popular with lines for everything. It smelled and looked good. We did not buy anything to eat from those instead choosing to buy from the local establishments. We bought pizza from Nina's, the Italian restaurant. In the morning we bought lattes from Deja Brew, the coffee shop around the corner. They had a long line to get inside too but we managed to get there at the beginning of the line. It was very good and we enjoyed it.

I was on my mobility chair and Sonny on his scooter and was able to get through to see everything with no problem. Most of the street corners in Norwich have ramps built into them so they are easy to use for wheelchairs and mobility vehicles. The parks have cement sidewalks and that is a big help for me. I kept getting stuck in the grass! My mobility chair, "Jazzy" is larger than the scooters and heavier with 4 small wheels and 2 large ones.

I had never seen this many people in Norwich since I moved here in 2018. It was a friendly crowd and everyone got along with no trouble that I saw. I only went on Saturday but Sunday had less people and seemed quieter. Norwich has a lot of public parking areas with the addition of the large parking lot at the county office building which was just across the street from West Park. They also had a number of port-a-potties available off to the side of the court house.

There were many different types of artists at Colorscape selling their art work. Not just paintings and prints. The baskets on display were absolutely stunning! I love baskets but had to make myself stay away from them. I do not want to buy more things for my apartment. I have been getting rid of a lot of stuff so have to stick to that. I had fun browsing though.

One of my friends is a sunflower fanatic and when I saw the sunflowers painted on a few different pieces in this one booth I had to grab a picture for her. I will be writing another post about Colorscape soon as I took a lot of pictures. One artist was doing sculptures with his chainsaw. I saw a lot of handmade jewelry and many other items that I can't name them all here. It looked like people were buying too. I hope these artists did well at Colorscape.