Faces in the Crowd at the Peoples' Arts Festival Detroit 9-21-08 deedsphotos

The Peoples' Arts Festival at the Russell Industrial Center drew a large crowd on Saturday September 21 which sunny and warm in contrast to the previous weekend when heavy rain caused the event's cancellation. The event was held in the former Packard Motor Company's Detroit plant which at one time was one of the larget automobile factories in the world. Part of the long-abandoned plant is now being used for artist studios and other commercial purposes.

The crowd was young and, as in the photos below, colorfully dressed for the occasion. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves because although the quality of the art was uneven, there was a lot of it, and the weather couldn't have been better. One of the most impressive art offerings were large, lifelike trout and salmon fashioned out of metal by Tim Shoemaker of Metal Art. A photo of one of Shoemaker's brown trout appears below.

Lyndon LaRouche and Communist Party crusaders had booths at the festival as well as a few other non-artist vendors. I spoke for a few minutes with the very nice woman representing the Communist Party and with an earnest young man pitiching for LaRouche who I was informed when I asked why he isn't running for president this year is 87 years old. There were a fair number ofObama buttons in evidence and a woman at one booth offered colorful Obama T-shirts. She laughed when I asked her why she had none for McCain. No one offered McCain buttons or T-shirts, and I didn't notice a single McCain button or cap.