“I felt some community responsibility to bring it back,” says Tucker, who’s art director and visual arts instructor for the Lloyd Scholars for Writing and the Arts. He launched the event in 2007 with students in his Art in Public Spaces class, but moved on to new creative pursuits after 2022’s parade.

The parade’s nonprofit organization, WonderFool Productions (later renamed Assembli), worked with other community partners to try to keep FestiFools and its companion events, FoolMoon and ypsiGLOW, afloat. But after the nonprofit folded earlier this year, Tucker says, “I couldn’t let the parade just be a memory.”

After the nonprofit that took over when he left folded earlier this year, Tucker says, “I couldn’t let the parade just be a memory.” Recent U-M grad Julia Hagopian is looking foward to seeing “what Ann Arbor is about outside academics” as the events’ production manager. | Photo: Mark Bialek

On a November day inside a warehouse-size studio on Kipke Dr., Tucker sits with recent U-M grad Julia Hagopian, who’s pledged her help as FestiFools production manager. Hagopian, who graduated last year with a social theory and practice major and a museum studies minor, was in Tucker’s mural-painting class last semester with other mostly nonart majors. She also helped paint “a big evil mouse” in a money suit for the last parade, she says. Now she wants to “see what Ann Arbor is about outside of academics.” This year’s theme will be “FestiFables.”

Hagopian is charged with event logistics and is a pro at spreadsheets, Tucker says, while he says he prefers to “use paper plates” to record his ideas. “From my point of view, I still see it as an artist does,” Tucker says about FestiFools’ latest iteration. “It’s a creation that evolves. Here are the resources we have. Here’s the time frame we have. What can we make using what we have? And we’ll do the best we can.”

Jeri Rosenberg, who served as Assembli’s board president, explains that a “small and mighty board” worked hard to continue the nonprofit. “We were on a roll before Covid with funding and content,” she says, but after the pandemic their community partners “were also trying to get back on their feet.” She says there was a realization “that it takes a larger organization with capacity like the University of Michigan has” to do the events. Rosenberg says she hopes FestiFools evolves so “Ann Arbor makes it what they want and need.”

For his part, Tucker values the event’s handmade quality. “I mean, do we use our hands anymore for anything, except maybe a keyboard and a mouse? … It’s a chance for people to come in and use their hands in a different way, which I think also helps them activate their minds and hearts in a different way.”

Tucker and Hagopian will also bring back FoolMoon, the nighttime counterpart that features community-made luminary sculptures; it’s set for April 5. The theme this year will be FoolBloom!, and Tucker emails that they’re “thinking we’ll get tons of Luminary Sculptures featuring snap-DRAGONS, TIGER-lilies, EYE-risis, Audrey 2’s, bees, butterflies, and other pollinators, etc.”

They’re looking for volunteers to help with both events. Updated info can be found on the “FestiFools Studio” Facebook page.

“Will it look exactly like it has in the past?” Tucker asks. “I don’t know, probably not. But will people come along with us or wherever we go creatively? I hope so.”