Placencia Sidewalk Arts & Music Festival 2013

On a Sunday afternoon in February, the sun was shining and life was good so I thought I'd go check out the Placencia Sidewalk Arts and Music Festival.  That's a local event around here and we've all appreciated it for years now.  We see some of the most talented artisans and musicians come from all over Belize just to be here!

You can't imagine all the different people you'll meet as you walk down our little sidewalk by the beach.  Everyone is here.  The vendor booths line both sides of the walk and the place is packed with people!  This is a good sign.  Steve, one of my friends here in the village, felt the whole festival was set up better than ever.

Bob the Poet (one of the village characters) was selling his poetic cards and carvings of pumice stones.  Ben the Baker was sending some incredible aromas through the air of cakes, pies, cookies and all kinds of deserts.  He sold out by the way.  Not even samples were left over.  Barbara, who lives here as well, was selling her wonderful paintings on coconut husks!  She does the normal stuff too.  Rob, who was a tourist, moved here.  Rob does some fantastic tattoo work.

Bob the Poet

Ben the Baker

There were other novel ideas as well.  William and Jenica, from Mango Creek, came up with a way to recycle old plastic bags.  Imagine those useless old plastic bag stretched, twisted, and weaved artfully into a beautiful colorful bracelets.  They were selling like hotcakes!!!!

William and Jenica

The newcomers to Placencia were having a ball as well.  Roy and Sheryl from Wasilla, Alaska (where?) were enjoying the festival and the nice tropical weather.  They've gone to other festivals in their travels but really enjoyed the diversity at our festival:  arts, crafts, music, food, and tons of very, very, different people for all walks of life.  They'll be back.

I was getting thirsty so I aimed for the rum tent and found some happy volunteers rushing around to keep up with the crowd.  All four kept pretty busy most of the time.  Among them were Ally and Pamela.  They stated this was the best year yet for the festival; more vendors, more visitors, more food, and better organized.  Cool.

A very happy volunteer

At the very north edge of the Festival was Cyril who goes by the nickname of Ras Stine.  He has some wonderful bead and shell work as well as carvings.  He is here all year long, selling his goods.  He can be reached at inegryne@yahoo.com if you are interested in seeing what more he has.

Ras Stine

It's wonderful to see the festival progress as it has.  The layout of the festival was much more condensed and that made it so much easier to get around.  The music was left to one area on the beach which left the sidewalk exclusively for our artists to showcase their work, in peace and quiet.  Everyone I spoke with was happy with the diversity of the arts and felt the quality of work was quite high.

The weather is really good this time of the year, warm, calm, and sunny.  It's also just past the rush of vacation travelers around Christmas and the New Year, so it's calm and easy to get around.  This is an event worth planning your vacation to Placencia Village, Belize around.