Above: One of Karen Olks Magna Memo Decorative Themed Memo Boards
I swore to myself that I was not going to buy anything this year, as I headed out to the BAM (Bellevue Arts Museum) ARTSfair Saturday. I almost made it out without buying anything, when I spotted this piece, shown above. It is a dry-erase/magnetic board, with the coolest magnets ever! It's original, it's colorful and fun, and best of all, it is useful! I was able to hang it on my wall right away, and start using it! I had to make a potato salad immediately after the fair for a BBQ I had to go to, and it really came in handy. I just used the magnets to hold up my recipe! For the future, I can leave notes for myself or others with a dry erase marker. I'm excited!
A new artist appeared to be doing the chalk-art outside the museum this year. Her name is Gabrielle Abbott. Below, she is working on a rendition of Picasso's "Girl Before a Mirror."
Kids of any age can also leave some chalk-art for others to enjoy. I like the bubble-gum machine (as shown below, upside-down). There were some cool-looking cats drawn, and one person appeared to be working on the Huskies logo a little further down.
Here a dog is enjoying the festivities!
There seemed to be a lot of artwork with crows in it this year. Are crows trendy? I guess they must be... at least around here. It almost became a game to me... "okay, where is the crow piece in this booth?" I even heard and spotted a couple of crows watching the crowd from on top of the Bellevue Square Mall. When I first heard them, I honestly thought it may have been a sound effect from one of the exhibits, till I looked up and saw the actual birds watching everyone.
Some booths made it quite obvious that they liked crows as their subject, others may have had only a couple of crow pieces. Of course, there were some booths with no crows at all. They must not be in the loop. :)
One of the more humorous crow pieces, I did not catch the name of the artist. It had several black crows standing on this one branch, cawing at this little red bird in front of them. The little red bird, had his head turned towards all the black crows with a funny look on his face, as if it were saying, "Hey, what are you doing here?"
Even though I am not really into crows, some of the crow art was really cool. Vicki Banks had a booth of "Vulture Sculpture." There was one piece with a crow sitting on an old-time radio, another piece with a crow sitting on a cat.
The first booth of crow-art I came across was by Dianna Shyne. Her paintings had a single bright colorful background, with outlines of crows and branches in front. Looking at her website, it appears like she does paint more than just crows. It seemed like her booth was mainly crows at the festival this year. You can check out some of her crow-art under Bird Notes on her site.
Above: artwork by Dianna Shyne NWWS
Jana Grover also had several crow pieces at her booth in Bellevue. There was one crow piece called, "The Ten Crowmandments," that I liked. As I entered the booth, the artist was telling some customers a funny story about that particular piece. I don't remember all the details, so I am not going to try and repeat it, but here is a sample of some of her other work below. I really like her style.
Above: artwork by Jana Grover
Someone who did not have any crow art (that I know of), but who's artwork can be just as ominous as any crow-type artwork is the art done by Justin Hillgrove. I always like to see what new stuff he comes up with. I would have loved to have purchased a print of one of his new pieces called, "Crossing Wonderland." The original was there, it looked awesome, and, of course, it had already sold. There did not appear to be any prints of it either. I guess that piece must be pretty popular. I am not surprised.
His booth was set up very well this year,with some free coloring sheet hand-outs, and cool business cards with a scanning-thingy on the back, that takes you straight to his site (I found that particularly cool -- not many booths even had business cards this year). There were t-shirts to buy, a few prints (which seemed to be selling very quickly), as well as some art on canvas. Below is the front of his business card he was handing out. It is one of his more friendlier pieces, which also makes me feel a little sad at the same time.
Above: artwork by Justin Hillgrove
The highlight of Justin Hillgrove's booth this year, was watching him and another artist, Mike Capp paint side-by-side on a couple of small canvases with paint. They would answer customers questions while painting, some of the conversation being pretty funny. One customer commented that they really liked the "Good Grief" piece, a Peanuts mash-up with zombies. I guess that one is not a very popular piece among most, but that particular customer thought it "had to be done." She also mentioned she wished they would all get the Peanuts gang together for a High School reunion. Justin Hillgrove then made a quick comeback, "If they did that, all you would hear them say is 'wah wah wah wah...' <-- (the way adults talk in the animated Peanuts cartoons, which is illegible)." So true!
One other booth that stood out to me was one with chairs made from water skis by Pete Gratama! I did not sit in them, so I don't know how comfortable they were, but they looked really cool!
Above: Water Ski Chair (and photo) by Pete Gratama. See this, and other chairs at:
The weather at the festival was pretty close to perfect this year. The temperature felt mostly pleasant. Sometimes it would get a little warm, but then the temperature would drop just slightly again.
I did not eat anything at the Arts Fair this time, but I was kind of hoping to come across a booth that served the Deep Fried Pepsi Float to try it out. No such luck.
I did not stay as long as I probably would have, after all I a BBQ to go to, and a salad to make. I did get a chance to get around all the booths, fairly quickly before I had to leave, and that was nice.
Overall, it was a good experience this year. I had even contemplated on skipping the festival this year, and waiting again till next year, but I am really glad I went yesterday. I might even start getting into the whole crow-trending thing! At least I know I will get a lot of use out of my newly purchased art piece this year, and that is exciting.
