Walking around Mesa Arizona…

Between Mayo Clinic visits we had a free day so we decided to  check out what was happening in Mesa Arizona on a Sunday afternoon. I found a small arts and craft fair called MACfest (Mesa Arts Council Festival). In addition I read that there was also a lot of public art (free art) to see along the streets in the downtown area.

Mesa is only about a ten minute drive west from Sun Life RV resort so we made our way through all the construction (which made it a 15 minute drive) and found a two hour (free) parking spot on a side road off of Main Street. We started our stroll from the west end of town and it didn’t take long before we were treated with some neat public art.

I love towns and cities that display public art! I really can’t afford to spend $16.00 buck a head to visit an art museum (well not if I want to also drink craft beer) so I love it when towns have murals , public art on display or have an interesting theme such as ponies, manatees or sheep all artistically decorated throughout the town to encourage visitors to walk the streets. Who knows we might even find a nice restaurant or brewery we would like to visit!

We walked a bit over two miles around downtown Mesa. MACFest was what we expected… a small arts and crafts venue but well worth the time to check out. We also visited a really neat music shop that had all kinds of instruments on display. Neither of us are musically inclined but envy those who can play an instrument. We carry a trumpet with us in case I get the itch to learn something but I worry what our nearby RV neighbors might think while I am beginning to learn to to play the trumpet….

We also checked out the Mesa Contemporary Arts Center which is a really cool architecturally designed facility.  They do have a small Museum of Arts hiding in the complex which is free to visit. There were only about four artists works on display but we found one of them to have art that was both whimsical and enlightening… The artists name is Diane Gilbert and her sculptures use thousands of played guitar strings and tiny squares of painted screen. Her hope was this:

Each piece is composed of strings played by many musicians who never knew each other but are now playing silently together contributing to the larger expression of a luminous space.

We took a few photos inside (I hope we were allowed) and have shared some here. We thought her work was truly captivating…

After our walk we decided that we were close enough to check out another of our favorite forms of art… One of the most popular Micro Breweries in the area is called the Four Peaks Brewery and their keynote beer is called the Kilt Lifter. So we headed over to Tempe and found the place and man… was it crowded! Popular is an understatement as we had to park a good 1/4 mile away and walk to the brewery. Kilt Lifter is a fabulous Scottish Ale and I thought their Hop Knot IPA was also an excellent brew! There was a lot of excitement that day as the TV was tuned on the Arizona vs. Arizona State basketball game.  It was a fun game to watch and when ASU upset ranked Arizona the crowd went wild.  We feel so fortunate to have had another great day on this road of retirement....