New Haven Independent

All this and more transpired as a normally staid section of downtown New Haven was transformed into a village populated by exuberantly creative artists. Ideat Village, the two-week alternative arts festival that coincides with New Haven’s International Festival of Arts and Ideas, kicked off its eighth annual celebration Saturday with a free-for-all of art-making and bike activities.

Ideat Village is intended to be an accessible, grassroots, and participatory celebration of the arts, explained co-founder and organizer Bill Saunders.

“There’s no middle man here,” Saunders said, grinning broadly below a head of long graying hair. He stood by the entrance to Pitkin Plaza on Saturday afternoon as artists sprayed, painted, cut, and hammered behind him. True to form, Ideat Village began its festival with an open invitation to any and all to create art in the little brick plaza located next to the Bru coffee shop on Orange Street.

The participatory creativity continued around the corner on Court Street with an exhibition going up at the Orbit Art Gallery, open to anyone who wanted to hang art on the wall. (Orbit is accepting art for the duration of Ideat Village.)

Meanwhile, in the Millennium Plaza behind City Hall, local fixed-gear bike enthusiasts were kicking off an afternoon of activities, including a bike joust on double-decker cycles.

In just a few hours on Saturday afternoon, Pitkin Plaza became an open-air art studio and exhibition space as sculptors, painters and musicians, decorated every available surface. The walls and fences of the plaza had been covered with white vinyl, creating blank canvases for several “aerosol artists.” A group of DJs filled the air with hip-hop beats.

One of the most ornate pieces was made by REO (pictured), who runs a plein-air gallery of aerosol art on Water Street.

On the other side of the wall, Shaelyn Moody, Mary Jane Moody, and Sierra Chueka were hard at work on a painting of their own. Their nature-themed piece featured a tree with a trunk of bricks, along with images of butterflies and flowers.

It wasn’t just walls the received a coat of paint, local teacher Liz Theis had a unicorn screenprinted onto her skirt by Jennifer Van Elswyk.

Her impromptu clothing decoration service was not only while-you-wait, it was also while-you-wear-it.

Hamden metal sculptor Erich Davis celebrated his first day off in four months by building a sculpture out of wood. He and his crew assembled two trees out of scrap two-by-fours. Davis said that he was a participant in the very first Ideat Village eight years ago, when it was just a one day event.

Davis’ trees took root next to a huge metal replica of Michelangelo’s David. The sculpture was transported to New Haven from Massachusetts for the festival.

The Boston artist who created it left instructions that it was to be enthusiastically decorated.

Among other additions, David received a colorful new tattoo.

A block away at 118 Court St., the Orbit Gallery was being hung with all manner of art, open to all mediums and artists who walked through the door. The temporary gallery will be open during the entire festival and artists are welcome to hang work at any time. In one corner, a giant wedding dress made from a white parachute was suspended from the ceiling.

Down the street at Millenium Plaza, the artist behind the dress was girding himself for battle. Mounting a borrowed double-decker bike, Silas Finch took his foam-and-PVC-pipe lance in hand and pedaled furiously towards Brian Hornby, who was similarly equipped. Their joust was part of Ideat Village’s “Scorch-A-Thon” an afternoon of “cycling mayhem” organized by the Elm City Scorchers, a local bike gang.

Finch was nearly taken out by a spill that “tacoed” his front wheel, but a bit of careful repair had him up and pedaling again. The repair job didn’t last long, however, and Finch and Hornby moved onto traditional single-decker bikes to continue their duel.

Click play below to see the action unfold.

In the end, a clear victor did not emerge from the joust. Finch chivalrously declared his opponent to be the winner. Hornby replied, “we’re all winners.”