Michelle Currier\u2019s featured artwork appears on Festival of Arts posters around North Park (Photo courtesy of North Park Main Street)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nMichelle Currier, a Poway native, is this year\u2019s featured artist. Her vibrant pop art-style paintings exhibit bright colors and draw inspiration from famous pop artists Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.<\/p>\n
The piece that earned her the \u201cfeatured artist\u201d title is a single subject painting of a woman boasting of deep blues, greens and reds. The piece, along with the rest of her paintings, doesn\u2019t have a name.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s … a type of painting that when I was doing it, it just sort of felt \u2014 it\u2019s hard to explain \u2014 it just sort of clicked,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The UCSD alumna attributes her passion for bold colors to her childhood spent in San Diego.<\/p>\n
\u201cSan Diego definitely has some very artsy communities,\u201d she said. \u201cGrowing up in San Diego, every weekend you\u2019re going somewhere new and you\u2019re seeing different pieces of work and being inspired by everything around you.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old said that apart from working in a couple showcases in the past, headlining the art portion of the Festival of Arts is the biggest role she\u2019s received as an artist.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never had anything quite like this before,\u201d she said. \u201cI was looking at the other … pieces of artwork that were submitted and everyone was so talented, so it\u2019s really quite an honor and very flattering that I\u2019m the featured artist.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the festival\u2019s music scene, local band Vokab Kompany will co-headline with Steve Poltz and Mariachi El Bronx.<\/p>\n
The group, which varies from a six- to 10-piece accompaniment, is comprised of four full-time members, including vocalists Rob Gallo and Matt Burke, keyboardist Geoff Nigl and saxophonist John Avery. Additional band members \u2014 Tyler Olson (drums), Vikingo Burkhiser (bass) and Richard Galiguis (guitar) \u2014 join for live performances.<\/p>\n
On their website, Vokab Kompany defines their style of music as \u201cgenre-defying\u201d that leaves its audiences in a \u201cmusical stupor.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s grown into a live hip-hop, funk, soul, electronic mashed-up musical composition I guess you could say,\u201d Gallo said. \u201cSo you get a full smorgasbord of music when we do our shows.\u201d<\/p>\n
May 21 will be the first-ever Vokab Kompany performance in North Park. Although the band members live locally, Gallo said they usually avoid playing shows in the area so as not to \u201cover-saturate\u201d it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we do play a San Diego show, we want our friends and family to be excited about it,\u201d Gallo said.<\/p>\n
Attendees of the North Park Festival of Arts can watch Vokab Kompany perform at 6:45 p.m. on the Main Stage, located on University Avenue between 30el<\/sup> Street and Ray Street.<\/p>\nNew to the festival this year is longer hours: Festivities will last from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. \u2014 a four-hour extension from last year\u2019s 6 p.m. curfew.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe used to have people here until 6 p.m. and it would be really hard to get them off the streets,\u201d said Angela Landsberg, executive director of North Park Main Street. \u201cThis year we decided \u2018Nobody really wants to go home. Let\u2019s not make them go home.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Another addition will be a DJ and cocktail lounge on Illinois Street, which Landsberg described as a family-friendly environment during the day and at a place where people can \u201csit, relax, listen to some great DJ music and, at night, have a cocktail.\u201d<\/p>\n
Festivalgoers who are 21 and older can also participate in the Waypoint Craft Beer Block, which features unlimited tasting from more than 30 craft brewers. Two sessions \u2014 one from noon to 4 p.m. and another from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. \u2014 will be accessible for $30 tickets each.<\/p>\n
For more information about North Park Festival of Arts, visit bit.ly\/1LxQ8mE<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u2014Tori Hahn is an intern with SDCNN who recently graduated from San Diego State University with a degree in journalism. <\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Tori Hahn<\/p>","protected":false},"author":803,"featured_media":250196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Color and funk","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11547,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-250195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-features","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/803"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Michelle](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Currier-artwork.jpeg\")
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