Artsy Adventures in Long Beach and Santa Ana

Being a younger person in sobriety means that I have a lot of life left to live and a great deal of stuff to experience with the clarity that sobriety brings. As such, I like to spend my weekends doing fun things. I have friends who like to party, and, even in sobriety, I like to party with them!

Through work, I was able to attend an event at a place called MADE in long beach. This place is awesome in itself; it’s a collaborative effort between a lot of local vendors and artists that sell their products in a really hip little store.

While I was there for the event, I was super excited to be in a new place, and was jazzed on all the people and art pieces i saw there. One of the staff members, named Cory, puts on art shows where he exhibits his work, and more often than not there is live music!

Alejandra (the cutie with the purple lipstick who also happens to be the graphic designer for Nerdy Sober Hipsters) was notified by Cory about one of his shows being in Long Beach this weekend. We already had plans to hit up the Santa Ana art walk that night, so we decided to go to both events!

Cory’s Show was actually held at a bar! LOL! But we had a good reason for being there, so I was not fretting one bit!

We ended up only being there for a little while, but I did get this awesome picture of two lovely sober ladies! That’s our friend Bella on the left!

Feel free to say hi to them if you see them around!

Unfortunately we missed the band, apparently they are pretty good! Here’s a picture of them! I stole it off their Instagram! 

And as quickly as we arrived, we set off to next event of the night, the Santa Ana Artwalk!!!

The Santa Ana Art Walk is a really, really fun thing to do in sobriety. The vibe is not the same as a bar or a club. It’s a big gathering, mainly comprised of musicians and artists from the local Santa Ana area. Everyone is out on the streets selling their art, or doing live demonstrations. Most of time there are local bands ( or random people) that just want to incite dance parties in the streets!

Outside, you can buy pieces of art, clothing, or jewelry from the vendors! What’s great is that all the vendors are usually orange county locals who want to put their art out into the community. Most of the stuff is pretty cool and reasonably priced.

The Old Town Historic Art District of Santa Ana is full of old buildings, most of the renters are actually aspiring or professional artists who have private studios where they work on art at all times of the day/night. Once a month they open their private studios to the public, so you can walk in and get to know them and their art on a personal level!

In sobriety there are a ton of awesome things we can take part in and appreciate! We are definitely not a glum lot!!

This art walk is just one of those things and it’s an excellent experience. I try to go every first Saturday of the month, so hopefully we’ll see you there!