The big highlight of the Berkley Street Art Fest is its chalk art contest, in which participants compete against others while creating pieces of art on the roadway in the downtown.
By: Mike Koury | C&G Newspapers | Published July 11, 2023
BERKLEY — The Berkley Street Art Fest will be returning for its sixth year this month.
The Street Art Fest will take place from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, July 15, on Coolidge Highway between Catalpa Drive and Beverly Boulevard. As always, the festival will be highlighted by its chalk art contest.
Attendees looking to take part in the chalk art contest can register at berkleystreetartfest.com. Registration costs $30 for a team of up to four people, $25 for an adult and $15 for a child.
“Every year, it gets a little bigger and a little bit more intense, and I like the fact that it runs the ages,” Events Manager for the Berkley Area Chamber of Commerce Katie Kutscher said. “You’ve got team families trying to do chalk battles to, like, a 12-year-old who will have a square. So it’s really, really cool to see how many different generations can get involved in one contest.”
Aside from the contest, Kutscher said, there will be a culinary arts corridor on Dorothea Road with more than 30 artisanal food vendors and the Shop for Good Village, which is a collection of recycled vintage vendors and ethically produced global products.
She also said there will be a kids activities area with a foam factory and bounce house.
“It is such an interactive festival,” Kutscher said. “What I really think is cool this year is that you can get all artisanal goods, from packaged food to recycled clothing, as well as look at some really, really cool chalk artists along the way. So it’s just so much more interactive than your regular art fest.”
Visual artist Daniel Cascardo will be back in attendance making art, as well as David Zinn, who will be making pop-up chalk art pieces downtown.
Zinn, an ephemeral artist from Ann Arbor, will be setting himself up on the street to make an art piece, but what that will be, even he doesn’t know yet.
“I try not to have too much of a plan because I’m not very good at executing plans,” he said. “In fact, I’m philosophically anti-plan with art, because when you have a plan, now you have the capacity to fail. Whereas if you make it up as you go along, which art is very good at, then whatever happens can be considered what you wanted to have happen. It’s just a matter of attitude and perspective.”
Zinn said something he particularly enjoys about the Street Art Fest is how it includes all different kinds of art that can exist on the street, including temporary work like his, but also permanent mural installations.
“It takes a lot of civic commitment to put permanent art in a community, and I like the fact that we all get together and do all that,” he said. “Of course, in the meantime, during the Street Art Fest, they’ll also have people just selling whatever art form is theirs out on the street, and you get all the different ways that people express themselves, both temporary and permanent, all in one place.”
For more information on the event, visit berkleystreetartfest.com.