Bloomington Farmer's Market!

More than anything, the diversity of the Bloomington Farmer's Market stood out to me as I explored the area and reflected on it while mapping it out. Immediately as we walked in there were one of two paths you could choose. One leads directly into the market with all of the vendors and their stands, and the other path leads to tables and other hang out spots with a variety of musicians. Each path technically meets up with each other, as you can follow the second path back up around to the vendors, however, each offers distinct opportunities and a different experience depending on what people want to do there. As shown by the orange on the map, generally the children and families tended to be in the hang out spots away from the vendors to enjoy the day and take in the scene going on around them. However, when looking at the entire map, the main common element where the families and children hung out was music. There were musicians lined up along the second path, as there wasn't a limit to the amount of musicians who could play there. Even though there were families hanging out all throughout the second path, they tended to be more clustered around the musicians. When walking down the first path through the vendors, the majority of people were shopping and minding their own business, but the only places where people gathered together and took a break from the hectic shopping was near the musicians. Even though there were smaller groups around the musicians in the shopping area in comparison to the second path, there were still clearly groups of listeners that had gathered. In my mind, this established one of the communities within the market; the music listeners. Even though the majority of the performances were presentational and didn't have the same level of communitas that a participatory performance entails, the music listeners still stood out from the busy shoppers as a distinct community. One of the ways this became very clear was through the only participatory performance that I saw at the farmer's market, which took place right upon entering the farmer's market. The first thing that I noticed when I walked in was the loud banging of drums in a unique style coming from the general direction of a huge crowd of people. Generally, people initially either went right to their shopping or established themselves as part of the music listening community and went immediately to check out the interesting drumming that was occurring. When I went to see the performance there were a few people dressed in some sort of unique African-looking regalia playing the drums, while a girl danced and chanted around a semi circle while everyone stood around and watched. However, this performance encouraged people to come join in with the dancing, and out of the few who actually joined that I saw, there was certainly of level of flow reached by some people and communitas was established even further in the group of music listeners for those who came out and actually danced. When asking one of the male drummers in the performance about the music, he said that it was a West African style of music that he studied at Indiana University. He told us about his professor (Dr. Djo Bi) and how the goal of the music was to get as many people involved, smiling and engaged as possible. He talked about the point of the music being to spread the knowledge and respect of the music everywhere, regardless of background, skin color or any other element of a person. Music was a key component of the fair that established a community within the farmer's market, but it wasn't the only community there.

Another community of the farmer's market in Bloomington is the venders. Like other elements of the fair, this community valued diversity as shown by the array of products that the farmer's market offers and the pride that the vendors feel to be a part of a farmer's market with such a wide array of products. One woman who I talked to sold clay art and she not only was happy to talk about the artistic process behind her unique art style, but she raved about other cool artistic venders around her who she'd gotten to know in her two years of selling at the farmer's market. She also talked a fair bit about the application process she went through, which she said was fairly competitive (only fifty applicants out of around three hundred applicants looking to sell products that fell into the categories of sculpture, jewelry ,surface decoration, glass and woodworking). She said it took her a bit to get in, but because of how unique Bloomington's farmers market is with the huge variety of products they offer and fantastic atmosphere, it was worth it. When I talked to the people at the information booth at the farmer's market about the application process they said more or less the same thing as the woman selling crafts about the diversity. They love to find a diverse group of products to sell as they feel that there will be something for everyone and it will attract a bigger amount of people. However, they added that it is also very important to them that venders cultivate their products, and don't lie about any aspect of the creation process. They also talked about the importance of having a good amount of local venders. A woman I talked to at the information desk said that the farmer's market should reflect Bloomington's culture, making the importance of having local venders very high. This was also shown by a man I talked to at the Monroe County Democrats booth. He said that the goal of the booth was to help people understand what their political party is doing to help local problems and why voting for democrats will lead to solutions to these problems. Combining the local aspect, the legitimacy of the cultiving process and the diversity of products, the farmer's market in Bloomington is able to create a spectacular community of venders each year, contributing hugely to the great atmosphere of the market.

After looking back at all of this, my main conclusion is that Bloomington's farmer's market does everything in order to promote as much of an inclusive atmosphere as possible, making the market similar to participatory music in many ways. By having such a big focus on diversity with the music and venders it attracts a wide variety of people and contibutes hugely to the inclusive environment. By having something for everyone, nobody is excluded, giving everyone the opportunity to participate, the same as the goal of participatory music. By having an emphasis on local venders and giving the opportunity for local musicians to come out, it shows the importance of expressing the culture of the area, and gives the market a chance to interpret Bloomington's identity however they want. In participatory music, usually one of the goals is to reflect something about the culture, just like the farmer's market. Everyone I talked to also had a lot of pride about the market, and, furthermore, loved talking about it and was having a good time doing whatever they were doing. There is no doubt that a huge goal in participatory music is to make sure everyone is having a good time and has pride in the performance they are contributing to. Maybe most importantly, the variety just in the social atmosphere is very similar to participatory music. As I walked around, I noticed people doing a huge variety of things including, walking around, talking to people, sitting, dancing, analyzing various fruits or vegetables among many other activities. Everyone had a role to play in the social atmosphere that made it the way it was, and the farmer's market wouldn't have been considered nearly as successful if any of the roles went away. In participatory music it is extremely important to have a diversity of activities to create the dense textured music that is so unique to participatory music and makes everyone feel safe and want to get involved. I could describe the farmers market the exact same way, nobody seemed to be left out from my observations because everyone felt comfortable doing something, even if it was taking a break and sitting down to let the atmosphere soak in. For however much I talk about more specific communities within the farmer's market, I look back at my overall experience and know that it was so fun and out of the box was getting to constantly participate in the bigger community of the Bloomington farmer's market.