A local arts fair was held this past weekend in my hometown, Anacortes, WA. There were some amazing artists. Perhaps I'll get cracking on some of my own projects, however I've been under the weather emotionally and physically, and have been incredibly scatterbrained lately. Excuses, excuses.
There was Dona Reed of Friday Harbor, who does mostly hand-pulled relief prints of local animals and slightly tribal designs.
My mother and grandmother both bought clocks as gifts from David Roseburg, who has some great designs.
Another interesting deaf artist, Tai Poon, from China did wonderful, simple Sumi-e (Chinese brush painting) pieces.
A ceramicist, David Orr, had some incredibly elaborate, sgraffito works which were appropriately priced but really out of my price range.
German artist Beate Degen had beautiful, native inspired inlaid jewelry for sale.
Miranda and Joseph Skar of Skarart have been increasingly going to more artist exhibits and fairs in the past few years with their beautiful artworks, though they might have been a little insulted that I saw some influence of the Chihuly exhibit in their works.
Port Angeles based artist Helene Cooper was displaying her handcrafted jewelry on beachwood; very awesome display. She currently does not have a website, but she can be contacted at her e-mail wstudio9k@olypen.com .
I was able to speak a little bit of Japanese to Kayoko Tachibana who works with his wife Nori, making hand-crafted jewelry with Japanese paper and metal.
Another artist in the fair, Val Jackson, made some birdhouses and other outdoor art pieces that caught my attention, as I had once found a tutorial on how to turn a dollhouse into a fairy house, something that had kept alive in my child-brain for quite some time.
At the Anchor Art Space, before the Port Authority building where the main art show was being held, was a cardboard display with my old ceramics teacher, Chris Theiss's cardboard display. I didn't know until I read the business card that it was his work, since I thought he only did ceramics, though from a distance my mom spotted it and identified it immediately.
After voting in the art show at the Port authority building, I got to work with artist Allen Moe of Guemes Island using some of his special guemes clay in the Experience Art walk-in/by workshops by the pier. I haven't been able to work with my mom on any art projects for a long time, so it was nice to sit and play with clay. One of his pots is also being displayed at the local hospital. One of the interesting things about his work is that the firing is very direct and not time constrained - many pieces are fired in a literal bonfire after being carefully burried under the logs.
As these are only a sampling of the artists that I personally enjoyed, I encourage anyone reading this to come to next year's art fair and experience all the wonderful local artistry for yourself. Maybe you'll come home with some awesome souvenirs, you never know.
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