Daegu | Art, Food + Crafts at the Colorful Festival

Why yes, it’s another festival. It is summer in Korea after all. 

We attended Daegu’s Colorful Festival last year, but, not quite certain how to navigate the festival and confused by the multitude of other festivals that seemed to be occurring at the same time on the same block (a year later, I’m still somewhat confused about this), we spent much of our time wandering the streets aimlessly. Outside of the parades that materialized in front of us while we stood on a street corner studying a Korean map, it didn’t really feel as if we had fully experienced all the festival had to offer.

This year we skipped watching the parades and participating in the city’s attempt to break the world record for the largest (longest?) chalk art drawing and instead focused on the artistic side of things. It just so happened that most of the artsy stuff occurred in a shady park lined with food stalls. 

While we approached this year’s Colorful Festival with a plan we didn’t approach with a map. Or water. Or even a general idea of which streets would be randomly closed to traffic. We made the mistake of turning down the wrong street, one that seemed initially open, only to be stuck in a complete cluster f**k for nearly an hour. I’ll spare the details of another long, boring, unmemorable story, but suffice it to say by the time we found parking we were kind of ready to get on with things.

Once outside in the billion degree heat we studied a very abstract map of the festival that we found online. I think the map was drawn with the intention of simplifying the information for dummies like us, but in doing so it left out important navigational information like street names and landmarks. There were also two areas designated as art areas and we weren’t sure which was which.  We walked a million blocks in one direction, and then a million more blocks back to where we started, leaving a trail of sweat and frustration in our wake. Eventually Sly broke down and asked a lady at the information booth for help. As it turned out, the craft market we wanted to go to was located literally right across the street from where we parked.

But anyway, the festival. 

In the park across from the parking lot rows of vendors lined up selling all kinds of hand-crafted goods. Two small stages were set up on either end of the park with local bands playing. Interspersed between the bands and the crafts tables were stations where children could take part in their own DIY projects.

DIY stores are really popular in Korea (and I think Japan?). In most any area that sells handmade goods you can almost always find a couple stores or booths set up for kids. Some, like painting cut out wood figures or decorating cookies are simple, but others like candle making and box decoupage are quite elaborate. The cost is usually fairly minimal and there’s always an expert crafts person around to help assist the kiddos with their art. I love that kids are encouraged to not just buy things but to actually take part in making their own keepsake.

We browsed by booths of stationery, jewelry, paintings, homemade food, hand-made candles, clothes, hair accessories, and hand-sewn dolls. Renting a craft booth at a fair or flea market is really inexpensive ($10-$50) which encourages a lot of smaller vendors and artists to set up shop and sell their hand-crafted items. Flowers potted in small baskets or decorated tins seemed to be the most popular item for sale at the market. 

I love looking for unique pieces of art and jewelry, and of course, having our portraits drawn (we’ll get to that later). The jewelry at the art markets we have attended have been a little bit too blinged out for my tastes, and a lot seems as if it is made for children? In fact, much of what can be found at the art market seems targeted towards a younger, somewhat girly, clientele. That being said, of all the items available for purchase, the booth that we were most drawn to sold original graphical character art work. Cute! We purchased a few kitty magnets and were given a few extras for free. 

Along the edge of the park a row of food vendors cooked up all kinds of goodies. The usually suspects like potato swirls on a stick (my fave), sugar-coated corn dogs, and ice cream in u-shaped cones were well-represented. Unlike the lantern festival, the food here included non-traditional fusion Korean street food prepared by young chefs.  A lot of the dishes were completely new to me, items I have yet to see at any of the other street fairs.

By the time we found our way to the food booths we were too full to eat much of anything. Luckily, this was just a test run for the new Seoman night market that just opened this summer. We’ll definitely need to visit the night market at it’s regular location sometime soon. 

Our favorite street fair activity is having our portraits drawn while sitting on the street. We have had quite a few drawn at several street fairs and art markets in the last year so we took our time this year looking for something a little bit different than what we already had. We found an artist near the park that advertised “pop art,” and since the style was one we had not really seen, nor one we had in our growing collection of caricatures, we waited for patiently for the artist to return from his break to draw our portraits.

We took a seat on the makeshift, blanket-covered, folding bench and the artist began to draw. The artist drew very slowly, changing colors frequently and staring at us intensely. Soon a crowd grew around us with several people gathered behind the artist looking at the drawing and then back at us.  Most everyone seemed to study the drawing quizzically, but we imagined it was because the drawing wasn’t finished. We took it as a good sign when, after seeing the drawing come to life, a little girl begged her mom to have her portrait drawn by the same artist.

Meanwhile we sat and waited…and waited…and melted into the blanket-covered folding bench…and waited. After all that time we hoped maybe not for the best, but for at the very least a likeness…

Ummmmm…no.

WTF.

Fail.

By far, hands down, the worst portrait of us in existence.

It’s obvious the artist possessed a more than capable skill in drawing, but was he looking at or thinking of someone else? Even as a caricature it’s still so far off from what we look like (or at least what I think we look like). Our eyes were the only features that maybe gave away that it could possibly be us, but otherwise, I looked completely white, and I don’t know what mix Sly was supposed to be.

After the artist finished the drawing, then came the awkward moment of us trying to pretend like we loved it. The artist kind of chuckled and explained that it was meant to be a caricature, which kind of told me that he knew the likeness was not quite there. After a lot of nodding, smiling, and concerted attempts to mask the confusion on our scrunched faces, we got the heck out of there. 

Better luck next time, I guess.