{"id":35122,"date":"2015-09-22T06:59:01","date_gmt":"2015-09-22T10:59:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/raleighpublicrecord.org\/?p=35122"},"modified":"2015-09-22T06:59:01","modified_gmt":"2015-09-22T10:59:01","slug":"10th-annual-sparkcon-draws-more-than-50k-to-downtown-raleigh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/news\/2015\/09\/22\/10th-annual-sparkcon-draws-more-than-50k-to-downtown-raleigh\/","title":{"rendered":"10th Annual SPARKcon Draws More Than 50K to Downtown Raleigh"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paintings cover the ground and gymnasts dangle from trapezes. A pirate waltzes past on stilts. A Shakespearian sword fight begins while the sound of a heavy metal band clangs in the distance. The distinct smell of fried food wafts across the hot air.<\/p>\n

This is SparkCon, Raleigh\u2019s annual festival of creativity. Sprawling across four square blocks of downtown Raleigh from Sept. 17-20, the festival celebrated its 10th anniversary this year. Sarah Powers, executive director of Visual Art Exchange, the organization that produces SparkCon, said this year the festival drew even more visitors than last years\u2019 55,000.<\/p>\n

SparkCon includes 12 \u201csparks,\u201d or themes, including artSPARK, theaterSPARK and circusSPARK. Powers said the organizers tried to integrate the variety of sparks instead of segregating each spark into a specific location.<\/p>\n

Running through the event was ArtSPARK\u2019s annual street painting contest, where 800 people transformed 300 squares of asphalt into works of art along Fayetteville Street, Powers said.<\/p>\n

\"Street<\/a>

Anna Clare Spelman \/ Raleigh Public Record<\/p>

Street art contest images.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Cruz family painted two of these 5-by-5 squares. Jose Cruz, an artist and art teacher at Wake Forest Middle School, is a seven-time winner of the street painting contest and has been a participant since the festival began in 2006.<\/p>\n

This year, he surprised his wife and daughters by getting them a square too. Cruz\u2019s wife, Dawn, their daughters, Ariana and Alana, and Alana\u2019s best friend, Maia, won for \u201cBest Family Design\u201d this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was cheering them on and getting inspired by them,\u201d Jose Cruz said.<\/p>\n

For those who didn\u2019t register for an official square, there was a large piece of asphalt open to the public to draw on. By 4 p.m. on Saturday, it was covered in chalk. Nadia Harris, 8, and Avery Wright, 9, could be found there drawing their own masterpieces. Monique Harris, Nadia\u2019s mother, said they were inspired by seeing the art on Fayetteville Street.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like being creative with everything I do because it makes me feel more calm and relaxed,\u201d said Avery, sending up a cloud of chalk smoke as she worked on her drawing.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t

Anna Clare Spelman \/ Raleigh Public Record<\/h6>
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Dawn, Alana, and Ariana work on their award winning street art.<\/p><\/div>

Anna Clare Spelman \/ Raleigh Public Record<\/h6>
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Jose Cruz shows what the background image of his street art looked like.<\/p><\/div>

Anna Clare Spelman \/ Raleigh Public Record<\/h6>
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Street art contest images.<\/p><\/div>

Anna Clare Spelman \/ Raleigh Public Record<\/h6>
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Cheryl, Jose, Dawn, Ariana, Maia (Alana's friend), and Alana pose in front of their street art.<\/p><\/div>

Anna Clare Spelman \/ Raleigh Public Record<\/h6>
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Fayetteville Street from the bazaarSPARK.<\/p><\/div>

Anna Clare Spelman \/ Raleigh Public Record<\/h6>
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Cheryl, Jose, Dawn, Ariana, Maia (Alana's friend), and Alana pose in front of their street art.<\/p><\/div>

Anna Clare Spelman \/ Raleigh Public Record<\/h6>
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A girl works on her street art piece.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The tenth annual SPARKcon festival was held this weekend in downtown Raleigh, drawing crowds in excess of 50,000 people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24061,"featured_media":35128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35122"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24061"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}