One of the great things about living in Park City is that cool events take place right here in my hometown, but I don’t have to travel to them. Next one coming up? Park City Arts Festival, which happens every year the first weekend in August. This year it’s August 2, 3, and 4. Like the Sundance Film Festival, the Park City Arts Festival is a destination event that brings in thousands of people from all over the world. However, I can literally walk to it from my front door. This is both a blessing and a curse, because when you invite the world into your home, nine times out of 10 those party animals actually show up.
Ironically, I prefer the “curse” associated with the events that crowd our fair town, because when guests flock here like seagulls on locusts they bring their cornucopia of comedy with them. This usually has to do with the fact that Park City is at 7,000 feet, which means the air up here is thinner than Matt Lauer’s hairline. Inevitably you see entire families from places like Santa Ana or Newark red-faced, huffing and puffing their way up Main Street in search of relief in the form of $5 bottles of water.
Which reminds me…this year I can help you out if you need to hydrate on a budget.
Park City Arts Festival Insider Tip
Word on the street is that Livin’ Life Park City (at 577 A Main Street) is giving away free bottles of water during the Park City Arts Festival. Seriously. Stop in and tell them I sent you. I’m angling for some free art; specifically that nifty cast iron bat. I want to hang him on the wall in my bedroom because, you know, I don’t have a weird enough reputation yet in this town.
Besides I think the bat would go nicely with the witches broom I bought at the Park City Arts Festival years ago. (And yes, putting me in the same sentence with a witches broom spawns so many easy jokes even my dog could come up with a decent one.) Surprisingly, it’s the best broom I’ve ever owned. It’s handmade from twigs, and the handle is an actual tree branch. The artist who made it (whose name escapes me, because I bought this thing literally 10-plus years ago) told me it has magical powers, and for the right owner it actually flies. I’m not saying I’m the right owner, but I will tell you that if my car is out of commission, I’m not stuck taking the bus.
Park City Arts Festival Decor
Some of the hippest things in my house are past purchases from the Park City Arts Festival. I have my dancing ladies made out of glass, hand-painted ponies on muslin, and a hand-painted silk scarf of a pensive woman…just to name a few. I’m not sure what any of those pieces were originally intended for, but I assure you I put them to good use. The ponies hang in my bedroom window to provide an attractive barrier between me and my annoying neighbor’s insidious backyard trampoline. The scarf lady adorns a room divider to give the illusion that I have more rooms in my small house than I really do. And the glass ladies? Well hell, I don’t know what they’re supposed to be used for. I just thought they were awesome, so now they hang on the wall in my bedroom next to my headless mannequin. (My decorating taste is Early American Munsters meets Addams Family mixed in with Monet and a dash of Piccaso. Yeah. I’m that good.)
So come on down to the Park City Arts Festival. Look for me, I’ll be chatting up the artists and local shopkeepers, buying more art, and getting my thirst quenched at Livin’ Life Park City.
And hopefully that broom guy will be back this year. My sister’s shopping for a new car, but I’d love to introduce her to an alternative form of transportation.
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Stacy Dymalski is the host of the hilarious TV talk show “Mother Bloggers” on FirstRun.tv. She’s also an award winning keynote speaker and stand-up comic who gave up the glamorous life of coach travel, smokey comedy clubs, and heckling drunks for the glamourous life of raising kids (who happen to be bigger hecklers than the drunks). This blog is her new stage.
For more of Stacy’s comedy check out her book Confessions of a Band Geek Mom available in bookstores and on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.