Summer Fest Block Party!

By Robert Bernstein

Summer Fest Block Party took over the 700 and 800 blocks of State Street last Thursday. Here are all of my photos!

Here was the official flyer, listing some highlights and sponsors.

Justin Gunn showed up with one of his electric mini art cars. This one is a bunny!

After posing for me he scooted on down the road!

DJ Darla Bea was spinning the tunes for all the people dancing in the street. I was honored that she even took off her sunglasses and showed us her entire beautiful face!

And then she posed with my wife Merlie and me, along with Solstice Assistant Director Violet Coto and Pali’s artistic wife and collaborator Raven.

The Block Party was a chance for Solstice to publicize the upcoming parade and Children’s Festival. And to sell raffle tickets for a chance to ride the Throne in the parade and win lots of other valuable goodies. The raffle is still going!

Here my friend and owner of 33 Jewels Diane Garmendia posed on the Throne.

World Dance for Humanity filled the street and invited the crowd to join in. They were also collecting money to help the people of Ukraine.

Here I merged two of their performances in one video.

One amazing highlight for me was the group of skaters from Xanadu Skate Boutique dancing on skates! To the Jackson Five song “Blame it on the Boogie”.

They all posed with Darla Bea. The woman with the short blue top is Val Selvaggio, owner of Xanadu and an avid skater. And the woman in the red striped top is Madeleine Gendreau, who is helping to build a roller skate float for Solstice, to accompany their skaters in the parade!

Fiesta was also on hand. Aubrey Romero is Junior Spirit of Fiesta Runner Up and she danced for the crowd.

Then Spirit of Fiesta Runner Up Isabella Ricci performed.

Another Fiesta performance was happening in Goleta at the same time, so we were fortunate to have these fine young women to perform downtown. They told me they do about as many performances as the Spirit and Junior Spirit!

Isabella and Aubrey also kindly posed for a photo after their performances.

In the middle of all of this, our friends Kym Cochran and Jonathan Smith took us nearby to their pop-up studio to see the murals they are working on for Santa Maria. It has been fun to watch the progress in recent months and to see it almost done! If you read my story about the Iran projection art at UCSB you will remember Jonathan as the wizard of the production. Kym was there, too, but out of sight that evening.

Plenty of other Solstice people were in attendance. Jim Sun Bear and Serena Garcia posed in full costume as their Solstice characters.

And this photo of Riccardo Morrison with the throne shows off the full “Roots” Solstice theme this year.

One more Solstice reminder! Pullers are needed to pull the floats up the parade route and back afterwards. In some cases that pays money and you get to be in the parade!

And there are still many other ways to participate in the creation and performance of Solstice! There truly is a place for everyone in the community to be a part of this community event!

The Solstice Workshop is at the corner of Ortega and Garden Street. It is open every day as it gets closer to parade time. Come by and see the excitement, energy and creativity! And feel free to lend a hand! Everyone is welcome!