Zydeco Fiddler

Last weekend, I returned from Seattle, where I’d been working at the Northwest Folklife Festival. For the last eight years, I’ve worked as the festival’s Signage Coordinator (see posts from previous festivals here). The weather this year was pretty crappy — unseasonably cold and rainy, even for Seattle. But, I still managed to have a great time. Many of my coworkers have been at the festival for many years as well, so I was happy to get to hang out with many of them again. As always, most of my work takes place before and after the festival, and while the event is happening I have plenty of time to listen to music and take pictures. I’ve posted my best shots here; click on the photo above to see the whole gallery.

The Thursday after the Folklife Festival, I had a free day to roam around Seattle. As is my wont, I celebrated my first day of freedom from walking around the festival grounds all day by… walking around the city all day. I started out the day by meeting Jerin for morning coffee/tea at Elliot Bay Books. After that, I spent awhile shopping in and around Pioneer Square and Pike Place Market. I had an amazing lunch at the Three Girls Bakery — a big slab of baked salmon with havarti, spicy Dijon mustard, and lettuce on fresh rosemary garlic bread. It was the best sandwich I’ve had in recent memory. I ducked into a little record shop at Pike Place before moving on. In the jazz ‘New Arrival’ bin, I found an LP by the Australian Jazz Quintet — a group that featured Erroll Buddle on bassoon and tenor sax, and whose LPs I’d heretofore only been able to find on eBay.

Alexander Calder’s “Eagle”

Next I headed to the relatively new Olympic Sculpture Park, an extension of the Seattle Art Museum that sits right on the waterfront. The park has quite a few permanent pieces by sculptors such as Louise Bourgeois, Ellsworth Kelly, and Alexander Calder. There are also a number of temporary pieces on display, most prominently (right now, at least) a number of giant orange safety cones by Dennis Oppenheim. The park is also home to the PACCAR Pavilion, an expansive gallery space that currently houses a large and interesting installation by Geoff McFetridge called “In The Mind”.

Inside the Public Library

After spending awhile in the Sculpture Park, I continued strolling around town. I stopped in at the magnificent Rem Koolhaas–designed Seattle Public Library to pick up a little something for Veronica. I’d been there before, so I didn’t stay too long. Next, I wandered past City Hall and up into the International District for some sushi. Along the way, I spotted the fanciest fire station I’ve ever seen, and a very decrepit former hotel. Soon, I’ll have some pictures to post from the last portions of my trip — involving boats, trains, and an eccentric millionaire.

I had very little to do on Memorial Day, the last day of the festival, other than repair some easels and distribute a couple of sponsor banners to stages for specific shows. So, I was able to spend most of my time walking around, taking pictures, and listening to music. There’s always at least one Taiko group at Folklife, and the high-energy shows are always fun to watch. The group I saw this year was Inochi Taiko, which performed early Monday afternoon. Other highlights of the day included a professional jump-rope troupe (I had no idea such things existed), a performance by my friend Jerin, and perhaps the last thing I expected to see/hear at the festival: a sing-along performance of Mozart’s Requiem Mass.

Punk Fiddler

Monday evening, it was time to start breaking down all of the festival gear. I went around to the various stages and areas, scrambling to take down signs as soon as the programming in each place wrapped up. I worked until about midnight, and managed to get most things pulled down that night. I was happy that this year — unlike every other year I’ve worked the festival — none of my banners were taken out by overly tall box trucks. After the production crew and I had finished for the night and locked up, we set out for some celebratory beverages. As soon as we turned around to start walking, a Pepsi truck sped up the road in front of us and — BAM! — hit a banner, ripping out two corner grommets.

Jerin Falkner

With the help of my able assistant Whitney, all the signage was taken down, sorted, and put away by Wednesday morning. I then threw my efforts into helping production finish all of their stuff. I think we were done in record time, and quickly commenced the annual unofficial production wrap party/bar crawl. As always, the festival was a lot of work, but also very fun. After doing the same job for five years, it’s fairly low stress for me now.

I’ve posted another dozen or so photos from Monday — click any of the thumbnails above to see them.

I’m currently in Seattle, working at the Northwest Folklife Festival for the sixth consecutive year. (Posts from previous festivals here, here, here, here, and here. I’m once again working as the Signage Coordinator, overseeing all the signs and banners for the 4-day festival. Things have run relatively smoothly for me despite some unexpected setbacks, like the removal during the past year of a number of trees from which I usually hang banners. I’m worn out though; I’ve been getting to Seattle Center between 7 and 8 a.m. for the last week, and leaving between 6 and 11 p.m. Tomorrow, the last day of the festival, I plan to go in a little bit later. It’ll be a late night though, as we start to tear things down as soon as the festival is over.

Israel Shotridge -
Tlingit Master Carver

The weather has been beautiful, and I’ve had a fair amount of time to walk around and enjoy the festival. We (the staff) were given coupons for free meals from various food vendors, so I’ve been studding myself with festival food for the past few days. Tonight I had my favorite festival dish: the blackened salmon Caesar salad from Scotty’s. That represents just about the pinnacle of festival nutrition; my other selections have included Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked ice cream and an elephant ear.

Little Fiddlers

I’ve had a chance to play with my new camera some more. I’m still getting the hang of it, but I’ve managed to get a few decent pictures. I’ve posted 30 or 40 of what I’ve shot so far. I’ll probably have some more after tomorrow. Click any of the thumbnails above to visit the gallery.

My next batch of scanned photos is from this year’s Folklife Festival in Seattle. I’ve added 33 photos, which brings my total (including my first gallery of digital pics) to 60. Highlights of this album include a retro-punk busker, a family that evidently got a discount on floral cloth, a breakdancer, the adorable little girl seen at right, some soulful and well-dressed gospel singers, and my friend Jerin captivating the under-12 demographic. Click the pic to see the entire gallery.

This year’s folklife festival went quite smoothly for those of us involved in production. The crew was great, veterans and Folklife rookies alike. In my particular area, signage, I had two very capable assistants — Matthew and Tim. Matthew is the son of one of my mom’s long-time friends, and he and I haven’t seen each other for about sixteen years. It was nice to see him again and do a little catching up. But, I digress. The nature of signage is such that you rush around before the festival putting signs and banners up, but everything generally calms down by the second morning of the actual run. Matthew was only with us for a couple of days before the festival, but Tim was there through the whole run. As a result, Tim and I had alot of free time to go out and enjoy the festival. With two good guys helping out and four festivals already under my belt, this year was quite stress-free. From what I heard from other areas (programming, sponsorship, etc.), it seems as though everyone had a pretty smooth run.

March Fourth Hula
Hooper

Despite the relatively low-key nature of this year’s festival, it still wore me out. I was there usually between seven and eight in the morning, and never left before six, although some nights I was there considerably later. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights we partied too, first celebrating the end of the festival proper, then various stages of the take-down process. On Wednesday night (the biggest celebration), some of my co-workers started pestering me to come back out to work at Bumbershoot, an arts festival that takes place over Labor Day weekend. I guess I won’t be in school yet then, but it’ll sort of depend on the pay and what I’m up to in Madison.

The Masses on Saturday

With all the free time I had, I was able to snap quite a few pictures. I’ve posted a number of digital shots, but I have a few rolls of film to develop and scan, as well. At the moment, my gallery consists largely of pics from two groups — March Fourth, a punk marching band with stilt-walkers and a hula-hooping anti-cheerleader, and The Lions of Batucada, a samba bateria from Portland. There are also a few other pics showing various other things, including the crowds, a herd of hurdy-gurdies, and some of the more provocative propaganda being carried around the festival grounds. Any of the thumbnails above will take you to the gallery.

I’m in Seattle once again, working at the Northwest Folklife Festival, which happens over Memorial Day Weekend. I’ve written about the festival before. I arrived Saturday evening, following a bus trip from Madison to Chicago and a flight to Seattle. I think that if I do this again next year, I’m going to seriously look into taking Amtrak the whole way. I love traveling by train, and I’ve never seen most of that part of the country, except from above. The trip would probably take a couple of days, although I think it would be a nice relaxing way to get across the country. But, I digress.
This is my fifth year working as the Signage Coordinator for the festival. So, I pretty much know everything that needs to be done and have a pretty good idea of how to do it. Thus far, it’s been pretty easygoing, and I think I’m even a little ahead of schedule. The production team (who I’m technically a part of, even though I function on my own most of the time) seems to be really knocking out their work, too. Tomorrow will be the start of the big push, as the festival opens on Friday morning. I also get the first of my two assistants tomorrow, which will be quite nice.

So far, I’ve been mostly sorting out my stuff and working with Vincent, one of the Seattle Center’s boom truck operators. The latter task involves alot of standing around and occasionally saying “to the right a bit,” “up a little more,” “try tying it to the other branch,” etc. It’s amazing how tired you can get just standing around outside all day. Vincent’s a great guy though, so I don’t mind it too much. Tomorrow, I’ll start carrying signs and ladders around and climbing on things. Thursday will be a mad dash to finish putting everything up, with a little more time on Friday before the festival opens. Once the festival itself gets going, I usually have a fair amount of free time to wander around, listen to music, people watch, and take pictures. I brought both my little digital camera and my ‘real’ film camera with me. So, I hope to have some decent pics that I can post right away, along with some more interesting ones to post after developing/scanning/etc.
Well, it’s time for me to shower and crash, so I can be up and at ‘em early tomorrow morning.

I finally managed to have my photos from the Folklife Festival in Seattle developed. I’ve posted a few of them, and I’ll take this opportunity to do a festival wrap-up post. I didn’t take as many photos as in previous years. This was largely due to the fact that it rained three out of the four days of the festival. It wasn’t pouring that whole time, but it was cloudy and dark, making the light pretty crappy for flash-free photography.

Signs Galore

I guess I’ll start with what I was actually doing at the festival. This was my fourth year working as the festival’s Signage Coordinator. What that means is that I’m responsible for hanging signs and banners all over the campus of Seattle Center (where the Space Needle is). The pic at the left shows most of the preexisting signs — all the signs along the wall are stacked 4–8 deep. Every year, there are also a bunch of new signs and banners (which hadn’t yet arrived when I took the picture, to cover new and different venues and special one-year events or appearances. The first two years, I was pretty much on my own. In each of the last two years, I’ve had good help from Tahoma and one other person.

Funky Gospel Bass

The nice thing about working signage is that most of my work is done by Saturday afternoon (the festival always starts on the Friday before Memorial Day, and runs through the Monday holiday). So, I get plenty of (paid) time to walk around and enjoy the festival. I have to carry a radio in case someone needs me, but it clips nicely to my camera bag.

Peruvian Buskers

I caught parts of quite a few shows. I saw a number of dance groups: tango, flamenco, salsa, Zimbabwean, Irish, belly, samba, etc. A number of these used canned music, but the few who used live musicians were the most interesting. I heard a wide variety of music (in no particular order): Taiko drumming, jazz, Irish traditional, punk, klezmer, rockabilly, gospel, Afro-pop, reggae, bluegrass, folk, etc. Some groups were quite good, some were ok, and some were just downright weird. One such group was a polka band who played nothing but Johnny Cash covers. I didn’t catch their name, which may be for the best.

Artis the Spoonman

Aside from what’s happening on the various stages (21 of them this year), there are always lots of interesting buskers distributed throughout the grounds. Since the festival doesn’t pay the performers (there’s also no required admission charge, just a suggested donation), alot of groups will set up on the sidewalk to make some money before or after their shows. There are also professional buskers who usually work downtown Seattle, groups or bands who aren’t actually playing at the festival, and high school (and sometimes younger) kids who want to make a few extra bucks. Most buskers are musicians, but there’s always a variety of interesting and bizarre performance art — human statues, human video games, acrobats, worm-eating, etc.

Boe Oddysey

Folklife offers really good people-watching opportunities, as well. It being a free festival, people of all sorts show up. You see people of all ages, ethnicities, religions, socio-economic statuses, sexualities, and various other lifestyle choices. Whenever I tire of walking around, I’ll just stand or sit someplace and watch the crowd. That can provide hours of entertainment. One person who stands out in the crowd every year is Boe. I don’t know Boe’s whole story, but he volunteers for Folklife (during festival set-up) every year, and I think he did too much of something in the 60s. He always wears a brightly colored skirt, pastel scarves, and a bell around his waist. He can be seen at outdoor shows of all descriptions waving around bunches of his scarves, which he bungee-cords to each wrist. He’s bizarre, but he seems to always be having fun.

Well, that probably should have been split up into multiple posts, but I had to make up for posting almost nothing when I was actually in Seattle. Each of the pictures above links to a larger version of that particular pic, but you can see all my photos from this year’s festival here. Also, check out my galleries from past years: Folklife 2003 Folklife 2005. I worked the festival in 2004 also, but I got strep and mono part-way through and had to go home. So, no pictures from that year.

So, the fesival is officially over. Tonight, we had the “grown up” wrap party with members of the board, staff, and volunteers. It was a fairly low-key affair with lots of food and drink. Last night was the unofficial wrap party with the production crew and the rest of us who have been in the trenches for all ten or eleven days of on-site work. That celebration was much longer and rowdier.

This was my third year working the festival, and my best so far. The work went well — I’ve finally got a good handle on what I have to do as signage coordinator. Plus, I had (for the first time) two great staff helpers who made my job much easier. Aside from all that, this is the most fun crew I’ve worked with. As far as the production world was concerned, I pretty much liked and got along with everyone. There was an interesting mix of crew, including a singer/songwriter, a couple of actors, an etymologist, and a couple of photographers, among others. I’ve come away with a number of great new friends, and renewed friendships with people I knew before. To (in no particular order) Chandler, Gretchen, Jerin, Christopher, Damon, Rev, Mea, Breanna, Kyle, Chili, Bill, Dave, Jack, Andrew, Shawn Michael, Scott, and everyone else: thanks for a great time, and I hope to see you all again soon.

I just finished my first day of work at the Northwest Folklife Festival in Seattle. I flew up on Thursday, then took the Amtrak up to Bellingham to visit my mom’s (and my) friends Mary and Jim. The train ride was absolutely wonderful. Travelling by train, you see lots of sights that you couldn’t see if journeying via car or plane. For the first 45 minutes or so, the tracks ran right along the water of the Puget Sound — the interstate is miles inland. On top of the sights, the train is more comfortable than other modes of travel — lots of legroom, the ability to get up and walk around, and both a full-service dining car and a bistro car. I wish that Amtrak went to more cities — namely Tallahassee and Nashville. Come to think of it, a route between Tallahassee and Mobile would be especially useful to me in the near future…

Anyway, enough about the train. I had a great visit with Jim and Mary at their house on Lummi Island, which is part of the San Juan Islands. We dined on fresh wild salmon, and they took me out sailing on their 38′ boat, the DanRan. That was a blast, especially since I hadn’t been sailing in years. I took the train back down to Seattle last night. Much of the journey was in darkness, so I spent most of the time reading.

Today was the first day of prep for the festival, and our call was 7 am. We won’t start so early from here on out, but the days will only get longer. The festival itself actually starts on Friday, and runs through the Memorial Day holiday.

I hope to have time to take lots of photos of the festival, which I’ll post when I eventually get back to Tallahassee. The thumbnail above links to a few digital photos I took while visiting Jim and Mary. Film pictures of that trip will appear later as well.

I’m staying with a friend I met through the festival a couple of years ago. Michael’s been kind enough to host me in his cool loft apartment/photography studio/art gallery for two years now. It’s conveniently located near the Amtrak station, SafeCo Field (where the Mariners play) and most importantly, the Pyramid Ale House.

Well, I’m tired from a long day of carrying stuff. Time to kick back and relax with a book…