Painting Concrete & Listening to Music, Today & Tomorrow

These things always strike me as being damn cool, I have to say, and this year sounds like it’s no different…

Today and tomorrow (Sat., November 21st & Sun., November 22nd), the Center for Hearing and Speech — a local Houston nonprofit that helps kids who can’t hear learn how to speak — is having its 4th Annual Via Colori Festival. It’s a street-painting festival, with something like 200 artists creating awesome murals on the city streets themselves, and it’s pretty awesome.

On top of the art, the CHS folks have also recruited a nice lineup of local musicians & bands to rock the place from two separate stages while the artists do their thing. Today they’ve got Beetle, Spain Colored Orange, Flying Fish Sailors, The Texas Toast, Kristine Mills, Jerk Store, Two Star Symphony, & Stan Crawford; tomorrow there’s Buxton, The Wild Moccasins, Grupo Kache, Runaway Sun, Eric Korb, Elaine Greer, John Quintin, & The Smooth Operator. Personally, I’d try my best to catch Buxton, the Moccasins, Kristine Mills, Elaine Greer, Flying Fish Sailors, Spain Colored Orange, & Two Star Symphony, but I think it’ll be cool no matter who you’re able to see. Check here for the schedule.

The festival takes place in Sam Houston Park, at the intersection of Allen Parkway & Bagby, and it’ll run from 10AM to 6PM today and 10AM to 5PM tomorrow. And don’t fret about the weather, because the weekend’s supposed to be beautiful…

The whole thing’s a benefit, btw, but it’s free to folks who show up — the “benefit” part is from companies & people who sponsor the festival, either directly or by sponsoring a specific square on the street that an artist will be painting. Get on out & enjoy it all.