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
Ed Coffman stunning intricate wood and stone inlay objects, furniture
Viscosity big, juicy chunky pop colored glass balls, bowls
Jim Dunakin FABULOUS bold chunky jewelry. I went back a few times but just couldn’t find the right piece to bring home
Alex and Mona Szabados figurative enamel faces in Russian style
Sally Craig FABULOUS exquisite finely woven silver and gold wire jewelry, oxidized
Sana Doumet chunky silver and gold jewelry
Sabine Schran-Collings FABULOUS gold and silver jewelry
Maggie Meister spectacular, ancient looking jewelry, artifacts
Tina Barry bright and colorful jewelry with chunky glass tubes, beads
Cornelia Goldsmith FABULOUS gold jewelry
Melissa Finelli bold silver asymmetric jewelry, sculptural shapes
Sarah Fox fun, bold jewelry of felt and silver
Vicki Fish mixed media boxes with black wings, animals resin heads
Mary Ennes Davis mixed media art ,wood, found objects panels and guardians
Barbara J Kline photography. layered negatives and hand colored, very atmospheric
Lu Ann Ostergaard photography, details and textures enlarged
Viviana Bonanomi Santamarina paper knitted mixed media sculptures
Marianne Bernse fun colorful textile hangings and floorcloths
art of wings magical fairy wings
Suzanne Tidwell interesting textiles, she did the big knitted socks for lamp posts that lined the streets in the area
Anya FABULOUS wearables, sliced up mixed knits t-shirts
Great Coats wearables, nice trench with overcast edge, very smart and wearable
Handmade Chenille great classy but interesting wearables
Oida Touchon FABULOUS woodcut prints, bold
John Shrader exceptional pierced wood objects
Martha Collins EXCELLENT fine layered wood bowls, jewelry, functional objects
Dona Reed excellent chunky woodcuts, gutsy crows
Published on: Aug 19, 2011