Art Fair Revisted (So Many Links, I Can Barely Lift It!)

I'm hoping against hope that I'll still be able to do significant fair wandering this week, but it's difficult to say.

This is also just around when I began my blog last year, so I thought I'd revisit some old posts and see which artists are returning. If you care to read any old posts -- super cool -- if not, swing by the booths of a few good artists. And have a gyro and some funnel cake or wander a few blocks over from the crowds, to Babos and get a glass of wine and a cheese plate (they're awfully nice over there).

Michael Paul Cole (photography) and Shandor Madjar (jewelry)

http://cakelurking.blogspot.com/2011/07/i-think-kick-ass-is-hyphenated.html

Have they returned?

Cole: Pssssssh. Doesn’t look like it. Go visit him in Minnesota and Idaho in August…

http://www.michealpaulcole.com/architectural.html

Madjar: Yes! Booth… On E. Liberty St/ South Division.

Cody Miller

http://cakelurking.blogspot.com/2011/07/i-think-kick-ass-is-hyphenated.html

Has he returned?

Miller: Doesn’t look like it.

Drunken Men: Yes, most assuredly.

Chris Roberts-Antieau, John Whipple, Lynn Whipple.

http://cakelurking.blogspot.com/2011/07/compatriots-artists-weathermen-thats.html

Have they returned?

Roberts-Antieau: Sho nuff. Booth # A252

Whipples, Whipples, Where are the Whipples? Hiding somewhere, I expect.

Joachim Knill and Matthew Naftzger

http://cakelurking.blogspot.com/2011/07/something-strange-is-afoot-in-hannibal.html

Have they returned?

‘Fraid so. In cahoots and causing trouble at #A379 (Knill) and at # A377 (Naftzger)

Bill Skrips

http://cakelurking.blogspot.com/2011/08/gathering-continued-art-of-bill-skrips.html

Has he returned?

Skrips: Sadly noooooooo, he has flown the coop for nicer climes. Good luck to him, but booooooooo.

I wrote about approximately one tenth of the artists I wanted to focus on last year and I expect to be even worse this year, being ONE WEEK AWAY from using my passport for the FIRST TIME EVER, so um, here are a few snaps from last year:

The sweetness of Floridian Kana Handel. Holding one of her "Things on My Head" watercolors. She just makes me happy.

Brilliant booth display from Joan Rasmussen (will she be here? Look her up.)

It invited audience chalk participation, though most of us were too timid

I am blanking on this ceramicist's name, but she was in the Yourist Gallery, I believe

She's also really sweet and has written a children's picture book. Picture book people are the best!

Peewee repetitions. Recycle, Haha!

I just like it. No parking, but so much shining.

And here we have the creation of one of my favorites, Rebecca Bashara (and husband Scottt MacDonald)

The jeweler herself. Though she sure doesn't want to be photographed.

One of my absolute favorite rings (tied with one from Shandor Madjar) is from Ms. Bashara. The year I bought it, her husband patiently wrapped some wire around the band to tighten it up for me. Nice, talented people. I skulked around her their booth last year and talked to her mother; she told me three anecdotes, all of which were variants of running into an unknown woman, wearing her daughter's jewelry and asking said woman about the piece in question. "You KNOW who MADE that??? That's my DAUGHTER!!" The woman was amazed and so she'd get to repeat it. A very proud Mama. FAN.TAST.IC.

See, now doesn't he look sad? Almost as if he knew his maker, Bill Scripps would not be coming back this year.

 Other awesome:

Nick Wroblewski, printmaker from Viroqua, WI
I usually moon about his booth until I get embarassed and leave.
Feel free to embarrass yourself at Booth A247.

Eric Silva, metalworker, jeweler. Loves to play with natural elements, but render it gritty. If he could use antlers for your necklace, he would. But nooooo, he's more refined than that.  Booth A216.

Brigitte Lang, ceramicist. I just love her. Ann Arbor, MI   Booth A300.

I'll stop there, though there are obviously SOOOOOO many artists worth your time and attention!

Wow. LAZIEST BLOG POST EVER. In any case, I hope everyone who cares to goes out and explores! You never know when you'll find something inspiring...

More armchair art fairing:

Original Art Fair Artist List:

www.artfair.org/tools/artist/directory.jsp

South University Artist List

http://www.a2southu.com/art-fair/artists/

The Guild of Artists and Artisans (Main, Liberty, State)

http://theguild.org/art-fairs/ann-arbor-art-fair/

Gathering, Continued: the Art of Bill Skrips

On the heels of ruminating about scraps and detritus, it only seems apropos that we take a few moments to consider the sculpture and found art of Bill Skrips. Many-layered, frequently ominous-if-not-doomed, his pieces carry titles like "Mirror of Skin" and "Devil Got a Letter." 

{Perhaps he listens to a little Furnace Room Lullaby while creating? Possibly some Tom Waits.}

According to his web site, he “grew up in a house filled with stuff, my dad being a pack rat. It always frustrated me to think that he was just letting all this stuff sit, whereas I had plenty of imagined uses for it—not that he was willing to part with anything…To this day, I don’t see what others would call a mess—my studio is just a wonderful tumble of raw materials.” 

He continues, “I think of the studio as a part of my head—literally, a creative space” – and this is the key to the appeal of artists’ studios, right? I’m not assuming that everyone cares about such things, but a part of me thrills to this, to see these spaces that intermingle images taped to the walls, intended to serve as visual spark plugs, to catch at some interesting twist in the mind; to see materials laying around before they have been made sense of – I know this is important, but I don’t know how. To see a studio at times is to see the precursor to art, to see just a little bit of the workings of that artist’s mind: just *what* is being explored with these materials, what questions are asked, again and again?

It should be said that I’m not talking about artists in some obnoxious, rarefied way: this calls to mind when I used to read poetry regularly and attend readings frequently. The gathering was agonizingly slow to start and a fellow attendee – and would-be poet – tossed up her hands and declared helplessly, “Poets don’t OWN watches~~!” People murmured and chuckled and I refrained from glaring at her. As far as I could tell, poets are not woodland sprites and hopefully they have bank accounts and can drive cars; and if they cannot – or do not care to – observe the details of this world, they will be piss-poor writers indeed. But so, to descend from the soapbox, if you happened to read the last post, you can see why Skrip’s process would especially hold appeal for me.

I had fun snooping about his booth at the Ann Arbor Art Fair a few weeks ago, gathering little scraps of information about him. He was the first artist who didn't momentarily cringe when I asked if I could take his photo, saying instead, in mock horror, "Oh me? Oh NO, not a PICTURE!" before he stood next to ones of his digger sculptures, which was my first favorite. When I swept through later on, other ones caught my eye and demanded more attention -- which brings us back to the notion of collecting: there's always something more appealing, always more to discover. 

The two digger figures both appear apprehensive; which is certainly sensible, what with being surrounded by rusted metal and immediately next to a large coffin-shaped box...The idea of digging appears repeatedly through his work. Definitely a nice, rich theme to explore, with the uncovering -- or covering up -- of layers. Naturally those layers can serve as stand-ins for any number of things: knowledge (/self-awareness), time (/history/mortality)...or, in a more literal sense, dirt, which he blogs about here.

Skrips also used a lot of wheels in his pieces, until he realized he automatically began to wonder where he would put the next wheel in any given piece. So it would seem he is on temporary wheel hiatus.

....But not so fast! Would you dare to take this figure's wheel from him?

I thought not.

Blurry, but next favorite.