Crysti Couture

This Saturday was a fabulously fun filled menagerie of art, music and great food all in one place: Chalk the Block in Downtown El Paso! The festival lasted 3 days and spanned from Mills, Franklin, Santa Fe and Mesa streets and the goal of yearly festival is to expose El Pasoan’s to the wealth of artists and creative minds from all over the city. I was pretty impressed with the enormous spectrum of talent! Some people were accomplished local photographers and others were traditional artists, trying to peddle their wares to the adoring public.

Even though such a large and varied group of artists were set up in one area, the focus of the event was on the chalk artists who had toiled meticulously for hours on their vivid and sometimes lifelike images. Unique to the fest was the ability to text vote; each artist had a banner with their unique code. The art itself was drawn, with chalk of course, on the floors of the historic San Jacinto Plaza otherwize known as
the Plaza de los Lagartos.

First place went to Laura Mena, a junior painting major at UTEP,  for her exquisite masterpiece:

Here are some of my other favorites:

One of the main attractions of the event was the ‘Hand of Man’ which is a giant interactive hydraulic hand that makes the rounds during Burning Man. I really wanted a chance with the controller, to feel the car crushing power of the 27 foot high appendage but I was never chosen…boo.  But I’m no sore loser! It was fun to watch it in action:

What was memorable to me were the performances of the event. I caught the tail end of a mariachi banddishing out their original songs…the vocalist and the violinist certainly made an impression on me. Also extremely noteworthy was a local cover band named ‘The Vibe’…I was amazed at the octaves that the front woman could hit!

So at the end of the night, you can imagine I was exhausted but my thirst for a cultural experience was satiated. I am certaily looking forward to next year’s Chalk the Block event!!