The weekend's unfriendly weather failed to dampen the spirits of either artists or participants in the two-day Houston Via Colori Street Painting Festival benefiting the Center for Hearing and Speech. Hermann Square and City Hall environs swarmed with 15,000 supporters who helped raise $400,000 for the non-profit.
Bands — including The Suffers, La Sien and the Justin Van Sant Band — kept the music playing while close to 200 artists put their chalk to the pavement creating a vast array of mural masterpieces ranging from landscapes to portraits to abstracts.
The Center for Hearing and Speech's Rebekah Bennett reports that the crowd favorites included a black and white portrait mural by Cecelia Linayao, a dragonfly mosaic by Allison Kellogg and a 3D Native American mural by Mario Alberto Belmares.
Beyond watching the sidewalk art unfold, there was the Via Colori scavenger hunt, complete with a beer tent and cornhole, with 200 teams of young professionals scouring the festival site for clues leading to prizes.
Rose Sprott Swain takes on the Hermann Square sidewalk at the Via Colori Street Painting Festival.
