Patrons peruse a plethora of products at a prior Banbury Art Crawl.

One of the single greatest things about the Banbury Art Crawl is that it combines the aesthetics of a metropolitan art crawl with an Eau Claire flair. For the fourth year, art enthusiasts of all types will have the chance on Feb. 8 (3-9pm) and Feb. 9 (9am-3pm) to walk the floors of Banbury Place’s Building 13 looking at some great artistic productions. Attendees will see works from woodworkers, weavers, painters, potters, sculptors, jewelers, photographers, and glassworkers. Event organizers Jo Ellen Burke says she is drawn to this event because, “First and foremost, it’s meant to bring the exciting arts and the trades that go on every day in Banbury Place to the entire community. Then, with the space made available, we bring in over 35 local artists to share their work in every space we can find.” Events like these are about bringing the community together, having people from all walks of life share a moment, smile and warmly chat with one another. And that is wonderful – until you try to drive out of the packed parking lot cursing those wonderful people under your breath. Luckily, this year art crawl organizers teamed up with Volume One to provide a shuttle to the event from The Local Store, 205 N. Dewey St. This allows visitors to park in one of several downtown municipal lots and ride up to the event. Creating an intentional artistic community event costs money, but it has been important to organizers to keep this event free. To offset some of the logistical costs, organizers used the Eau Claire Regional Arts Center’s power2give.org site to successfully raise money to pay for advertising and transportation. For Burke one of the things that she really loves is, “The timing that (founder) Laurie (Bieze) initiated with the first crawl was perfect in that it brings beauty, color, and energy to these long winter days!”