Where I live: Get ready for the Berkley Art Bash, one of metro Detroit's great summer street parties

Get ready for another great Berkley Art Bash, 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. on Saturday, June 12, as local musicians and artists hit Twelve Mile to celebrate at one of metro Detroit's great summer street parties.

This festival, now in its ninth year, showcases local talent and businesses as a stretch of 12 Mile through the heart of Berkley's downtown area closes to traffic and becomes a great pedestrian mall for the day where visitors can shop, listen to some tunes, grab a snack, and the kids can try out the inflatable slide or sell their own artwork in a special student mart.

The art fair features the work of more than 90 artists, with many of them offering hand-crafted items at very reasonable prices.

I'm a big fan of wind chimes, and I especially loved these chimes created from discarded flatware that I found at last year's Berkley Art Bash (not only beautiful, but eco-friendly as well!). One set went home with me, and hangs on my front porch, and I bought a second set as a birthday gift for my mother.

The music is another highlight of the Berkley Art Bash for me, and this year the bill looks every bit as intriguing as last year's Art Bash shows (which included the bluesy Flint, Michigan-based Cidy Zoo, pictured here).

Brazil & Beyond, winners of "Outstanding World Music Recording" Detroit Music Awards in 2004 and 2006 for albums featuring, respectively, imaginative Brazilian-flavored versions of Beatles tunes and classical compositions kick things off at 11 a.m. this year.

The blues, rock, and funky soul-fueled Motor Honey, who, according to their My Space page, get their audiences dancing with an eclectic playlist that can include The Pretenders, Living Color, The Doors, or Diana Ross hit the stage at 1 p.m.

Royal Oak's Maggie McCabe fronts Maggie's Farm to round out the day's music with some great acoustic blues and folk at 3:30 p.m.

Berkley Art Bash director April McCrumb, owner of Berkley's Catching Fireflies whimsical gifts store, always impressed me with her command of social media and online outlets to promote her own business, as well as the Art Bash. This year, the festival has its own Facebook page where you can get a sneak peek at some of the artists' work, check out video clips from the performing bands, and catch any other late-breaking Art Bash news.

The Berkley Chamber of Commerce presents the Art Bash with help from several corporate sponsors.

Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to some fresh-squeezed lemonade, some shopping, some great music, and wondering if the fire truck housing the hot dog stand will be there again this year!

Note: "Where I live" posts are part of a series of periodic stories about special events and people in, and around, metro Detroit. "Where I live" posts are stories I'll post in addition to my regular schedule of stories about attractions around the larger Midwestern region. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them.