When we moved to Greenville, SC we didn’t know it was an “arts destination” town.

We moved to Greenville, SC because it was NOT L.A., from which we were moving. But that’s another story…

What’s an arts destination town? Well, without being all chamber-of-commercy, I guess it means it’s a town where folks come for the arts. Okay, Greenville’s not New York or Paris or Florence or even L.A., for that matter, when it comes to the arts. But it’s doing a pretty good job.

Take Artisphere, for instance; the mostly visual arts festival held downtown this past weekend. Artisphere is ranked in the top 5 arts festivals in the U.S., according to whoever goes around ranking U.S. Arts festivals. There were 125 visual artists from all over the country displaying (and hopefully selling) some truly great stuff. (Almost 1,000 applied for a space!) There was fine music being played continuously, craft beer and wine tasting (and imbibing), decidedly way better than street fair food offered by some good local restaurants, crafts demos, acrobats, street musicians and a guy painted bronze sitting on a bench like one of Greenville’s ubiquitous bronze sculptures that sit on benches. (In Florence there are guys painted up like marble statues standing around like, well, marble statues. So I guess this feature alone makes Greenville culturally big-time.)

Anyway, for the sensory-oriented, it was a pretty good place to be.