Artomatic Watch: The Home Stretch

It's had a good run, but the homegrown arts-free-for-all known as Artomatic comes to a close this Sunday. This is your last chance to see an oversized crocheted head, a beautiful painting of a strawberry on a hook and an installation comprising drawings of ants and ant sound effects.

Artomatic's offering more than 50 free events this weekend; my top picks are after the jump.

From Stage to Screen: A Friday night theater performance imagines playwrights Sophocles, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare and John Milton pitching their stories to Hollywood execs. It takes place at 8 p.m. on the theater and dance stage.

Braving the Elements: Since Artomatic kicked off with a fire performance in April, it seems only fitting that it closes with two this weekend. Capital Fire Arts performs outside at 9 p.m. on Friday and Flights of Fire performs at 9 p.m. on Saturday.

Taking Up a Tradition: Artist Shanthi Chandra-Sekar leads a workshop on making traditional Indian kolams, geometric patterns that Hindu women in South Indian draw in front of doorways. Participants should bring a pencil, paper, graph paper and erasers to the Lapis Auditorium at 2 p.m. on Saturday.

Like They Were Never There: Over the past six weeks, artist Trinka Margua Simon and her crew have logged more than 400 hours painting a mural on the 8th floor. (We caught up with her before the festival opened and shot this panorama.) At 7 p.m. on Sunday, she'll say goodbye to the festival by whitewashing the entire thing.

As always, check out a full schedule of events on the official Artomatic site.

--Julia