Fire It Up! Alley Party at “First Fridays”
FireFish Arts 2023 summer programs launch this week with the first Fire It Up! Alley Party taking place Friday, June 2nd from 5 to 9 pm as part of Main Street Lorain’s “First Fridays”. Fire It Up! Alley Parties will take place on the first Friday of the month throughout the summer at the “Alley Project” behind Broadway Avenue between 5th and 6th Streets.
These FREE community events feature entertainment for all ages, art making, and performances from local arts organizations. This month’s featured art is a display of lanterns for the new FireFish Festival Lantern Parade. The community will have an opportunity to help make a lantern for the parade.
The first of these collaborative events features Sandstone Summer Theatre’s sneak preview of “The SpongeBob Musical” at 6 pm followed by a SpongeBob Dance Party the whole family will enjoy. From 7 – 9 pm, Sheela Das and The Others will be on stage performing family-friendly hits from the 60s, 70s and 80s. And the Ohio Burn Unit will be there to spin fire when the sun goes down.
Drawing from previous successful pop-up events hosted by FireFish Arts, the “Alley Project” creates a permanent arts and community destination between 5th and 6th streets. The project includes an installation of garden pots, local art, and the permanent installation of several murals designed by Ryan Craycraft, Jeff Pye, and ACES youth program participants. Earlier this year, FireFish Arts was awarded a $25,000 place-making grant from General Motors and Main Street America for the “Alley Project.”
Phase One of the “Alley Project” launches Friday, featuring nine decorative pots planted by Joshua Biber of Black River Farmstead. The pots feature perennial plants, bulbs, herbs, and vegetables designed to flower and grow throughout the summer season and beyond. The decorative plantings will be joined next month by a small garden planted in collaboration with youth participants of the neighboring Church of the Redeemer Solidarity Urban Farms program.
Community Lantern Making
At each Fire It Up! Alley Party, more of these artistic amenities will unfold, leading up the 8th Annual FireFish Festival on Saturday, September 16th. The festival will take place this year in downtown Lorain between 5th and 7th Street, on and off Broadway Avenue. Serving as the culmination and celebration of all FireFish Art’s programs in 2023. The always FREE FireFish Festival once again promises unique art installations, music, food, fun, fire – and the much anticipated and signature burning of the FireFish with its parade, pageantry, and performance.
The annual “Pied Piper-like” dusk parade at the festival is growing this year. The parade will feature lanterns created by youth, community members, and artists, and the community can process alongside musicians, fire performers, and drummers with the lanterns they create at workshops this summer. Lantern workshops for all ages will take place throughout the summer at the Lorain Public Library, Art in the Park, and the Little Library at Lakeview Park.
Register for Lantern Making Workshop
The community can register for these programs at: https://www.lorainpubliclibrary.org/programs under the keyword FireFish.