Loose Leaf Notes

The following are some sneak peek random shots of day one of the four day festival.

I arrived in the afternoon with my son Josh, who is doing collage journaling with teens at the Global Village’s Imagine Tent, which my husband Joe runs.  It wasn’t long before I headed for the backstage beer tent for a brew, which is where I snapped this oxymoron shot of a man with a hula hoop and crutches. There was also a woman knitting next to a man who had a Richard Nixon with a gun T-shirt on.

On the way back to the Global Village to catch Josh’s workshop, I stopped to admire the latest large puppet installation made by Caroline Thomas of Ambrosia Farm and Bed and Breakfast and her cohorts, one of which is her twin sister.

I made a point to check out the solar powered phone charging station designed by my friend Ricardo Brown from SolShine Energy Alternatives.  It’s a first at Floydfest.  The solar panels that powered the station where outside the tent. Rick told me he moved them around throughout the day to catch the best sunshine.

This far-out fashion statement stopped me in my tracks. I think her name is Val. She’s relatively new to Floyd and we met when she approached me to tell me how much I looked like Meryl Streep. She, who continues to call me Meryl, was working at the clothing booth of Liza Jane Norman, a clothing designer from New York.

The teen scene at Floydfest is going strong (read about it HERE). This year’s activities include drumming workshops, spoken word and collage journaling with Josh (as you can see on this sign that I made for the tent). But mostly the teens like to chill, play cards eat Dogtown pizzas and meet new friends.

This is shot of drummer Brother Whit (left) and Imagine Tent staffer Jamie Reygle (far right) at the close of an Imagine Tent drum workshop. Watch a video HERE.

The Collage Journaling workshop was a big hit. I’m going to post more about that later.  Meanwhile, HERE is a short video clip. Josh is teaching 2 workshops a day and they involve a multitude of materials, including an old manual typewriter and a color printer so the artists-in-training can take pictures and print them out.

I brake for my Evo-Latic home girls, Emily Williamson and Leia Jones.  They roam the festival doing performance art.  Their ever-changing costumes always amaze me. Later I saw Leia doing an improv dance.  Watch it HERE.

Before leaving the Global Village I went to check out American Dumpster’s latest rat rod extravaganza, made by the Dumpster front man, Christian Breeden. Breeden’s fire breathing dragon (a regular at Floydfest, see it HERE) is currently in Nevada and will be back after Burning Man, I was told.  This new junk yard sphinx, also made by Breeden, was about to drive around the festival.

What’s new?  This is the new speak easy lounge and stage where vaudeville acts, including comedians, jugglers, daredevils and  hypnotists perform.  I’m sure the place is packed at night.

Speaking of night, that’s when things glow at Floydfest. I know this looks like jellyfish, but I think  they are really umbrellas.

The Lumineers were Thursday’s headliner on the Dreaming Creek main stage.  This Americana Roots band was nominated for two Grammy Awards in 2012 and were recently on Saturday Night Live.  

I didn’t expect to enjoy them as much as I did.  They are fantastic to see live and are an engaging and fun group that do a lot of foot stomping, flatfoot romping and crowd interacting.  They came out and played in the middle of the crowd in a crowd walk, a new phenomena to me, one which I hope to post more about later. If you look closely you can see the band member with an accordion way out in that sea of people.

Time to get back to festing. Day 2 is upon us.   HERE’S one of several videos I shot of the Lumineers performance. Enjoy!