Art Crawl is set to return on Friday, Aug. 13. Who says so?
No one’s really sure. The cosmos? Maybe our Hamilton spidey senses tell us? Are the parameters of this movable feast prescribed in some ancient Mayan calendar? Are they written on a shift in the wind?
It’s one of the beauties, mysteries, frustrations and defining idiosyncrasies of Hamilton’s famous monthly street frolic (second Friday of every month) that no one truly owns it, speaks for it, polices it or tells it where to go.
It is often referred to as “organic.” Grassroots. Noninstitutional. It just kind of happens. And that’s, for many, how it should be, though not for all.
Phoning around, trying to find the one authoritative papacy of the Art Crawl, to get some quotes and some sense of what to expect on the 13th, I was like a cat chasing a laser light. Never gonna pin it down. It’s not the City. It’s not the James North Business Improvement Area — no such thing exists. It’s not Pigskin Pete.