Things I picked up at Bele Chere yesterday

The gf and I went to Bele Chere in Asheville yesterday. The weather was actually nice this year, it had rained earlier in the day before we go there so the temps were not so freakin' hot, however it was a tad humid.

For those of you who do not know, Bele Chere is a street festival that is held in Asheville NC every year, usually on the last weekend in July. All sorts of folks rent booths to sell their wares or to push their political and social concerns, although since Asheville is such a progressive city no Reich winger would dare rent a booth, they're too chicken. They also have lots of things for kids to do and to watch, like the Purina diving dogs and the bane of all street festivals, the dreaded face painting. Along with all that there are also various stages on which various bands and singers perform. They usually have all sorts of bands and singers from most every musical genre.

Being the progressive politically aware art loving geeks we are we tend to spend lots of time looking at the booths and wares of the artists and at the political booths. We also like to graze at the food booths from local eateries. We stay away from the corn dog/philly cheesteak/deep fried mystery meat on a stick booths. Although the siren song of funnel cakes is hard to resist, but then I remember the pain of having my chest sawed open so they could bypass my clogged arteries.

In addition to the solid metric ton of fliers, pamphlets, business cards of artists, and brochures that tell me where I can find earth friendly realtors and locally grown foods, we also picked up the following stuff while at Bele Chere yesterday:

We got these postcards of handpainted photos by an artist named Donna Brown. I really like them a lot. I especially like the top one which shows a handpainted photo from an Asheville business called Kim's Wig Boutique. They actually have wigs that color in that store, I know because when we walk by it all the time when we go to downtown Asheville.

I also got a few more bumperstickers for my truck.

I love this one:

And I really like my new Patriots for Peace sticker too.

I got a couple of buttons too. I got this one from the cute gal at the NARL booth. She was so smart, confident, and self assured, both my gf and I really admired her for being so cool. I asked her if anyone had given her grief and she said that yes some people had whipped out pictures of aborted fetuses (but honestly, how creepy do you have to be to carry around pictures of aborted fetuses?) and tried to tell her what a horrid person she was for standing up for women everywhere. My gf got a button that says she "hearts" pro choice boys and we immediately put them on and wore them proudly throughout the rest of our time at Bele Chere.

I also got a button that has a picture of Jesus smoking a pipe that says, "Crack Whores for Jesus." I can't wait to wear it around Johnson City, I'm sure it will endear me to many more people.

Finally one of the things I am most glad we got is this 8 x 10 giclee print by an artist named Jessica Stoddard.
It reminds me of Degas, but Ms. Stoddard has a style all her own. She also had some great paintings and prints of buss forms and dresses. I liked this one because the female figure is faceless and Ms. Stoddard made that playing card part of the print. I like mixed media stuff in case you could not tell.

All in all we both had a good time this year at Bele Chere and I highly recommend that you check it out some time but only if you can stand being around lots of people at one time and you don't mind sweating your ass off.