Mid-summer in the city: ArtsWeek features three festivals in one this weekend, Jazz in the Square (top, Michael Davis photos), the Syracuse New Times Street Painting Festival (below, Michael Davis photos), and the 38-year-old Arts and Crafts Festival (bottom, photo provided).

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While the concept of ArtsWeek is new, its constituents are anything but. The Arts and Crafts Festival, now in its 38th year, will fuse with the Jazz in the Square music festival that has be-bopped since 2002, consummating a visual and aural marriage of the arts.

“I think ArtsWeek will help establish Syracuse as a cultural destination,” says Larry Luttinger, executive director of both the Central New York Jazz Arts Foundation and Jazz in the Square. “You can’t just go to other places in the state like Rochester or Buffalo and have this kind of experience. This will prove to Central New Yorkers who complain that there isn’t anything to do here that there is a lot to do, and that they are lucky to have such an active summer scene.”

In contrast to blues or other forms of music that are performed within a certain structure, jazz is the ideal sonic fantasia for ArtsWeek because the only way to define it, like any other fine art, is not to define it at all. French impressionist Edgar Degas stated that, “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see,” and the colors of sounds a jazz band strews across a euphonic canvas, improvised without borders, rhapsodizes the listener. Call it anything—except foreign.

“Jazz is America’s art form,” comments Luttinger on the genre’s New Orleans roots. “And we happen to have a symphony that plays jazz like no other.” He’s referring to the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, naturally, which will show off its Dixieland jive chops by kicking off Jazz in the Square Thursday at 8 p.m. on the Main Stage in Clinton Square. (For a complete festival rundown, see Matt Mumau’s Jazz in the Square preview on page 24.)

The majority of the music will be performed on two stages in Clinton Square, but lazy people are in luck. “Strolling musicians” will, ahem, stroll throughout the Arts and Crafts Festival, taking place in and around Columbus Circle (Jefferson and Montgomery streets). For those wondering how a person can walk and kick a bass drum pedal at the same time, they can’t. The strolling musicians will be troubadours in the proverbial sense that they will set up and play their instruments, which remain stationary, a distance from the main jazz area. 

Those strollers, along with easel-branding painters and other mixed-media artists, will perform live on the Connective Corridor bus, a shuttle service provided by Centro that offers free park-and-ride service from the Syracuse University campus to the ArtsWeek scene. The footprint of the Connective Corridor includes a network of more than 25 arts and cultural venues stretching from SU through the West Side. Its goal is to stitch together the entire route into a vibrant quilt to provide a sense of continuity throughout the arts community. Many participants in the corridor can be found throughout the festival expounding upon the importance of it. 

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Buses will load and reload every 20 minutes from the Q4 lot (near the campus entrance at the intersection of Comstock and Euclid avenues), as well as at four West Campus lots located on Henry Street. The free service is available after 5 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, 

“I would like Central New Yorkers to consider this weekend an in-town ‘stay-cation,’” continues Luttinger. “Sample the finest visual arts, hear the finest jazz, eat at one of the many four-star restaurants downtown, wander Armory Square, finish the evening off at a nightclub, crawl into bed, then get up the next morning and do it again. If I had the time, I’d definitely do it, but I’m going to be rather busy this weekend.”

Fest of Honor

Contrary to art’s creative spontaneity, this union of festivals was not magical happenstance. Last November, the Downtown Committee, a private, not-for-profit organization that undertakes programs to improve the city’s image and strengthen its economic base—the Arts and Crafts Festival, for example—along with representatives from the Connective Corridor, approached Luttinger about the possibility of experimenting with festival synergism. 

“We all decided that combining festivals would be the best thing to do,” he recalls. “What we’ve done is create a platform for what we hope will eventually become a weeklong event that helps define our city. Right after this fest is over, we’ll be planning for 2009 and we’ve already talked about adding more visual and performing arts in all styles and genres.”

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In previous years, the Arts and Crafts Festival was typically held when July 4 fell close to a weekend while Jazz in the Square was usually staged the last weekend of July. “We all looked to see what else was going on locally during the weekends in July and we decided that the best weekend to hold ArtsWeek was the last one in July,” says Laurie Reed, marketing director for the Downtown Committee, as well as director of the Arts and Crafts Festival. “There was another art show taking place in Rochester and northern Pennsylvania around the fourth {of July} that we wanted to avoid conflicting with, so we planned accordingly.”

Reed expects more than 50,000 people to attend this year’s event and while everyone may not be a connoisseur of the canvas or a jazz aficionado, the event has something for everyone. “This is also a shopping event and appeals to anyone who likes to either just stroll around and look as well as purchase,” notes Reed. “There will be everything from jewelry to furniture and everything in between. It’s a chance to enhance your wardrobe or redecorate your house with items that are all one of a kind.”

The Arts and Crafts Festival is financially self-sufficient, according to Reed, with artist and food/beverage vendor fees offsetting the Downtown Committee’s cost of mounting it. Artists from 27 states are slated to sell their work under tents and, since it’s a juried affair, you’re guaranteed some quality pieces.

“A number of the artists are repeat exhibitors,” says Reed. “Many of them do a circuit that involves traveling south to festivals in the winter before heading north in the summer. Over the years, many have developed a strong customer base here in Syracuse and people that want to add to their collection of a certain artist’s work will usually check up with them first thing to see what’s new.”  

The Arts and Crafts Festival will operate on Friday, July 25, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday, July 26, and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., in the streets adjoining Columbus Circle. Walking booth-to-booth twice over could be done in less than an hour, especially if you’re rushing. Reed is hip to this, which is why she arranges for a number of freak-less sideshows as an addendum to the starving artists slinging behind the booths. Food will be served up by many local culinary artists.

As if it is even a question, the highlight of the entire ArtsWeek is the 18th annual Syracuse New Times Street Painting Festival taking place Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Space is limited to 125 artists to chalk up a sidewalk masterpiece in a new location on the 200 block of Montgomery Street, with the chance to win cash prizes. Anyone and everyone over age 12 that is able to grip a piece of chalk can enter. Although, according to promotions director Marlene Belge, “we have the most pre-registrants we’ve ever had this year,” it might be wise to get there as early as possible to ensure you get a slab of cement canvas.

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The contest will be divvied into three age groups: 12 and under; 13 to 17; and 18 and up. An assortment of colored chalk will be dispersed to each participant, but since contraband is encouraged by The New Times, entrants can also bring their own. First place in the adult category will walk away with a cool $200, while second place is $75 and third prize takes $50; first-place teen and tween will get $75 while second and third take home $50 and $25, respectively. To register, call 422-7011 or visit www.syracusenewtimes.com.

But Wait,There’s More

If the concrete artwork at the Street Painting Fest hasn’t stoned you into statuesque submission and you’re able to chisel yourself away, you might stumble upon a number of local arts groups transfering the creative power to the people. On Saturday, from noon to 6 p.m., the Urban Arts Rangers will set up in the City Hall Commons plaza on the 200 block of East Washington Street where they will be directing the production of a newspaper chronicling the event live with an ad-hoc staff. The ArtsWeek Zine’s masthead will exclusively feature ArtsWeek revelers as anyone at the fest can write a short story about their experience, interview fellow attendees or take pictures to be included in the publication. 

Also, Tents of Hope, set up by Plymouth Church at their house of worship, 232 E. Onondaga St., is an interactive painting project to help raise awareness and solicit support for those affected by the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. For a complete schedule of supplementary events, visit www.downtownsyracuse.com/hotitems.

“After the initial meeting with Larry and the Connective Corridor, we started calling local arts associations for their input and to see if they wanted to get involved,” continues Reed. “Then we eventually met and brainstormed and solidified ideas with the groups that expressed interest. I really think we came up with a nice mix of activities that will be attractive to all the diverse people of the city.”

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One group that Reed and the Downtown Committee worked closely with during the planning process for the festival was the city of Syracuse’s Public Arts Commission (PAC). If you failed to decipher their objective through their moniker, their goal is to encourage and delineate the manifestation of works of art in public settings. One such was proposed specifically for this festival.

“We had an application for anyone to propose a public art project for ArtsWeek,” says Kate Clark, public art coordinator and economic development specialist with the PAC. “What we were looking for, aside from the quality of the project, was that it would be something interactive that residents and tourists could be apart of and also have fond memories of.”

The seventh application they received sealed the deal, Brendan Rose’s “Tectonic Sculpture.” Rose’s idea will materialize from noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday in the City Hall Commons plaza, with a little help from his friends: architecture students from SU as well as a few independent locals. The finished project will ultimately present itself to be a human hand that’s more than 10 feet high, quite possibly qualifying it as the biggest high-five of all time. 

“We met with him a few times and his idea was very warmly received by the entire committee,” continues Clark. “After the festival, it will remain there for two months. Then in September, it is planned to be moved to Lipe Art Park {located on West Fayette Street between West and South Geddes streets} where we’ll have an event with a big picnic and other festivities in our ongoing attempt to continue to put the Syracuse art scene into the forefront.”

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Without these Technicolor endeavors, Syracuse would resonate with the doldrums of muted white noise. “Public art activates public spaces that people may otherwise overlook,” says Clark. “It provides a new perspective that people might not otherwise see as a creative energetic place, and the appearance of it might allow two complete strangers to talk to each other that may otherwise go on silent. Public art starts dialogue which creates reflection and it’s a physical testament to how our city will ultimately be received.”