This weekend in Downtown Chico, the annual “Art, Wine, and Fairy Door Walk” commenced. The event consisted of 30 plus downtown Chico businesses. At different locations, art was featured from local artists which was a great way to bring in customers into the local businesses.
A majority of the audience at the event were adults. Kids were there, which is why the fairy doors came into place. There were 10 different fairy doors located in 10 of the 30 businesses in downtown Chico. The kids had to go around with a “fairy door hunt passport” to the businesses and once they found the hidden doors, they their passport was marked off. Once they found all 10, they were eligible to win a fairy garden.
The fairy door idea is a great way to keep the kids entertained while walking from place to place. Nine locations had free wine and complimentary wine glasses, adorned with the event name.
For viewers under 21, there was a great amount of art to see at the different locations. Local artist and photographer Bill DiGrazia‘s art was fascinating in that his series was photos of regular Chico buildings. He replaced the sky in the photos and set the buildings in different places so that they look like monuments.
“Anyone who has ever built a building thinks of it as a monument so I wanted to bring that to light,” DiGrazia said.
The first photo he took in this series was the Northern Star Mills building in downtown Chico. The unique thing about his pieces is that in a lot of them, there may be a hidden object. For example, in his series with the Chico buildings, there is an animal in each photo.
Some of the people who provided the wine aspect of the event were also raising money for different organizations. For example, at Chico Paper Company, Molly Openshaw of Mood Swing Wines gave people wine. Sales from this wine went to donating money for women who developed breast cancer in Butte County.
The event also had live music during the art walk, which consisted of Sparklers, Herd, Jazz Impressions and Trinity Accordion Group. There was also an art class being held at Parkside Taphouse for that portion of the event, which was free.
Jessica Castillo can be reached at [email protected] or @_itzjess on Twitter.
