Summer of Love

Today we are headed back to the late 1960s and the Summer of Love.

I knew absolutely nothing about the Summer of Love when I first started thinking about this spread.  Obviously the words came before anything else.  According to Wikipedia:

The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people, mostly young people sporting hippie fashions of dress and behavior, converged in San Francisco's neighborhood Haight-Ashbury.

Per the Official 60s Site:

The Summer of Love refers to the summer of 1967, when an unprecedented gathering of as many as 100,000 young people converged on the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, creating a phenomenon of cultural and political rebellion.

The bus shown above was taken from the internet.  It was parked on Haight Street in the summer of 1967.  For those of you who live in countries other than the U.S., this may be something new for you as it was for me.

I was amazed that this happened exactly 50 years ago, and there is a big revival of the Summer of Love this year in San Francisco.  Fifty years later, many are still marveling at the often drug-induced hippies, who came during the summer and mysteriously disappeared in the fall, only to be replaced by street people.

But during that magic summer, the excitement was centered around the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.  Exciting new music was everywhere and it was often free.  Bands like Jefferson Airplane, Steppenwolf, Big Brother & the Holding Company, Jimi Hendrix, and The Grateful Dead were a big part of the scene, but their names were virtually unknown before that summer.

These are the bands I still listen to, and I have often said I was born a generation too late.

Flower power became important, and those who flocked to the Haight-Ashbury area often carried flowers or wore them.  They were truly opposed to war (the U.S. was being torn apart by what was going on in Viet Nam), and this was one of their symbols.

Of course, if you were headed to San Francisco during the Summer of Love,

be sure you wore flowers in your hair.

It's what set you apart from the "establishment."  Trippy.

Materials used include white card stock I colored using shimmering mists through a piece of netting, a picture taken from the internet, three pieces of scrapbook paper, one heart shaped button, a Micron pen, and a bunch/bouquet of silk flowers.

Thanks for joining Bleubeard and me today as we looked back at the Summer of Love from 1967.  We are grateful for your visit and hope you will join us for this Summertime Love adventure at Art Journal Journey.