Check out 45 photos from the festival.
At the inaugural Palm Beach Art and Music Festival, New Times found the mood among the crowd of chilly hipsters and bundled-up art connoisseurs in attendance to be extremely positive. The dip in the temperature to the mid-50s on Saturday night
impeded a little of the festivities, but most welcomed the break from the heat and enjoyed the showcase of the area's up-and-coming artists.
The frosty (by South Florida standards) night made it a particularly slow evening for Georgette Pressler, owner of body-painting company Devious Body Art. She had to send two of her painters home because of lack of requests. Still, she was upbeat: "It's been great; I've had the opportunity to meet lots of new people who normally don't come to our Lounge events." The gifted artist, who sees the human body as just a different type of canvas, has been a longtime collaborator with Palm Beach Art and Music Festival organizer Teresa Korber and her monthly Art Nouveau Events held at the Clematis sushi bar and bohemian hangout. "There is a lot of room for us to sprawl here," said Pressler about the Meyer Amphitheatre environs.
And sprawled-out the crowd most certainly was on this night, most of it clumped together in the various arts and crafts tents positioned on the rim of the amphitheater grounds rather than in the ample field in between. However, a large group congregated for a fiery performance from Pyro Fusion, a pyromaniac troupe that mixes belly-dancing, hula hooping, and baton twirling with blazing flair. Although the Pyro Fusion girls were hampered a bit by the weather and told us that the wind limited their ability to "eat fire," their endless amount of scorching props sure made up for it.
We then bumped into Milly La Madrid, lead singer for West Palm Beach five-piece Bonnie Riot, and asked her if she thought more people came out in support of the six bands or the 50-plus art vendors. "It's an equal balance of both," said the commanding vocalist, while admiring the "mismatched" abstract mixed media of Beau Myers.
The engaging Myers told us he was feeling "orgasmic" this evening. The artist had sold five of his pieces of art -- squibbly chaos done on gels, which reminded us a bit of Dutch-American abstract expressionist William de Kooning's work. He even garnered a commission or two, which paid for his booth space.
Interior decorator Heather Jury was swirling her hips in an LED-lit Hula-Hoop to the beat of Leading the Heroes' driving power pop when we caught up with her. The buxom 32-year-old blond was admittedly having a blast, telling us that the festival was a great showcase for West Palm Beach's sprouting art scene. "It goes against the stereotype people have of Palm Beach County being just for old stuffy people."
Teresa Korber, the mastermind behind this event, seconds that sentiment, telling us that the crowd at her festival was slightly younger than what you'd find at SunFest. The dynamo artist and now proven successful event planner tells us she is moving forward with coordinating a second installment of the event. "It's exactly what we had hoped for," said Korber, encouraged with the amount of families that also came out -- who normally can't make it out to her Art Nouveau gatherings. When asked if she would have done anything differently: "Asked God to turn it up a few degrees, but that's about it."
