06/07/2019

If you don’t know, First Friday here in San Antonio is food trucks, drinks, and LOTS of local art and musicians just doing their thing freely in the King William area in the Blue Star Arts Complex. It’s one big artwalk filled with vendors, crafts, and food. I took my daughter and her best friend to check it out.

It’s also one of the few days where the Blue Star Arts Complex decides to charge for parking: don’t pay! Go to any of the side streets off of Alamo St. and find a place to park that isn’t blocking anyone’s driveway or where it isn’t marked as a tow-away zone.

Our first stop were these vendors all set up with homemade jewelry, coin bags, purses, headgear, even dog gear! Their patterns were so fun, from puppies to Avengers to donuts, and I ended up getting some headbands, which fun bonus: they can double as eye masks! She even takes custom orders.

You can find her things here: facebook.com/skycrafter.tx

Nearby were these handmade bracelets that were super colorful, the girls got one of each for the summer. 🙂

You can find these things here: https://www.modernishjewelry.com

 

I also saw my dream future home:

A quick walk down Alamo St. towards Probandt St. and we made it to Blue Star:

Another great find we stumbled upon was this vintage fashion shop, filled with fun, classic things like eyelet nightgowns, swimwear, and cotton shirts with old shops from San Antonio that have long shut down. There was even a tiny dressing room made of screens for people to try on the clothing!

I talked with one of the owners for a bit, who revealed that she was a student at the University of the Incarnate Word studying design. She also confirmed what I have been telling my daughter: the fashion from the ’90’s is coming back hard! Both women were dressed so beautiful and fashionable; the girls loved their gold makeup and mismatched earrings the most.

You can find them here on Instagram: @divine.sunshine.vintage

Next stop was Choice Goods Gallery, with quirky t shirts and tons of skateboards with designs that were 2-D and 3-D. The gallery also holds items from other local street artists, along with the owner Robert Tatum’s own work.

These guys were outside the galleries protesting animal cruelty. The computer screens were showing animals being slaughtered. I used it as a way to open a dialogue with the girls on how they felt about it. Both hated animals being killed for food; my daughter has even tried to become a vegetarian, but said she liked bacon too much.

We made our way to Brick, where the Friday Market was taking place. But first we saw the venders outside, one of them being Vintage Junkie, who had these fabulous old cameras, luggage, and even a pair of rabbit ears for a TV (which I had to explain to the girls about).

Inside the market were tons of vendors’ tables with their own works. One of my favorites is BarbacoApparel, who make awesome stickers and my favorite T-Shirt that I saw all night: The periodic table of tacos.

You can find his great stuff here: barbacoapparel.com

More pics of other vendors:

This band called Big Cedar Fever was playing, a cross between folk, swing, and country…? Whatever they’re classified as, they were great!

Next door was the gallery Fl!ght which had a wonderful simple exhibit where each piece was spray painted black words on paper.

Hibri Gallery has glassworks from an artist who was speaking about how he made his creations. They were all lit somehow from within!

As the night winded down, there were still drinks to be enjoyed, and musicians to hear.

We headed back to the area where the food trucks were near our car. We bought a refreshing Mexican coke at a place called very appropriately the Hub MRKT, which doubled as a bike store with supplies. Fun fact: this used to be a gas station’s convenience store back in the day. Another fun fact: Mexican bottled coke is the best tasting coke EVER, hands down. I dare you to argue it. 🙂

So you have to eat something worthy to go with this wonderful drink, which is where the truck “Ay Que Rico” comes in. This translates in Spanish as, “Oh, how rich” but is really like a slang for “Oh, how tasty.” We ordered the tacos Al Pastor, which translates to “Shepard style.” But it’s really just a super yummy pork taco with cilantro and onions. And tasty they were!

We literally finished off the night with a bang as a group of bicyclists rode by with a Roman candle firework shooting it off, sending colored sparks into the sky for all to enjoy.

Be sure to catch First Friday next month, though it might be 100 degrees at night by then here in SA. Find it here https://bluestarartscomplex.com and see you out there!