Here and around the globe, the cancellation of the 2020 South by Southwest Festival and Conference was a startlement, and one of the first chilling signs that COVID-19 was going to seriously disrupt our lives and livelihoods. A year later, we ve still not returned to normal – and maybe we never will. But we have, collectively, gotten better at this thing – at being safer, and at being more innovative.
Same goes for the world s largest commingling of cutting-edge technology and culture. SXSW 2021 is a 100% virtual affair, to be experienced like just about everything else these days: from the safety of your own home, the comfort of your own couch. That doesn t mean this year s Fest is unambitious. SXSW IRL is almost too big to comprehend. SXSW Online is just as daunting to wrap your arms around but in different ways.
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Creative Box Studios, launched in November of 2020, is an online platform that offers live online art workshops led by emerging women artists: They send you a kit with all necessary supplies in the mail, and they teach the classes right there on your favorite screen. This is not the fierce course of study that you’ll find in the Atelier we referenced earlier; this is arting of a more recreational sort, and a bright respite from the pandemic (or, we daresay, boredom in general).
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The Cathedral is a co-working and event space inside a refurbished (a
gorgeously refurbished) 1930s church – with 14-foot ceilings, natural light, finished cement floors, oil trap sinks for eco-friendly cleanup, conference rooms, and private studios. Used to be, the atxGALS would have to do their art-and-music-and-socializing thing in other people’s places all the time. Now they’ve got this architectural treasure for bringing the fun with.
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It s a time of giving, and mom-and-pop shops, boutiques and bigger retailers offer myriad gift ideas from bourbon to skydiving. (Shutterstock)
AUSTIN, TX It s the season of giving as a way to show goodwill in the coming year. Not to be left behind, area retailers offer an abundance of gift options many with a quintessential Texas twist from barbecue sauce to skydiving. The list is heavy on spirits to help ring in the New Year with a meaningul toast. The Old Coupland Inn and Dance Hall is celebrating its infamous Madam, Tilly Devine, who watches over the upstairs seven room B&B Brothel from her oil painting perch, her subtle finger gesturing and knowing, her mischievous look inspiring proprietor Abbey Road to capture all of that charm, insinuation and proposition in her BBQ sauce and smoke cured, dried meat jerky, an email sent to Patch began.