Bellevue Arts Festival - exceptional crafts that caught my eye

A couple of weeks ago, we drove down to Seattle and took in the 3 day Bellevue Arts Festival. What treat! The only time I ever went to this wonderful regional juried fine arts and fine crafts festival was a very long time ago when we were boating in the San Juan Islands and I saw a poster for it. I left our 2 young boys with my husband for the day in Friday Harbor. I started the day with a ferry ride over to the mainland, rented a car, drove by myself down to Seattle and found my way to the fair. This was a big trip all by myself way back when. I raced around the incredible fair and took in as many things as possible before I had to drive back up to Anacortes, return the rental car and ferry back to Friday Harbor. My mind was buzzing from all the wonderful things I’d seen from price point of under $10 to great big metal sculptures for many thousands of dollars. I’d always wanted to go back but this event falls on the same weekend as our own town fair Gibsons Sea Cavalcade and so I’ve missed it up till this year.

We took our little old poodle off to the kennel then headed south taking pretty much the whole of Thursday getting there. Hubby Dennis, my mother and myself checked into our hotel right in the heart of the venues and then said see you tomorrow to son Ben, 24 and sent him off by bus to have his own adventure at a Seattle Youth Hostel. Dennis saw the fair quickly and wandered off and Mom and I stuck together and did the fair much more thoroughly. We took the whole of Friday just doing the high end venue under Bellevue Square Mall then saw the other 2 street fairs just around the corner on Saturday.

Here’s some of the fine crafts that really caught my eye….

Aruna Ostapas painted metal baskets, metal art quilts

Barry and Rosalind Hage big, bold colorful teapots and sculpture forms

Leslie Codina wild stacking ceramic shapes on galvanized 1/2″” pole, fabulous garden sculpture.
Laughter poles from my own garden are inspired by stacking garden poles I’ve seen, maybe even those great ceramics ones listed above but I can’t remember.

Cameron Kaseberg solvent transfer, crows on chairs and landscapes

Marie Maretska elegant abstract copper enamel panels

Mark Anderson interesting paint finishes on chunky wood and metal furniture, sorry no image