Art Fair on the Square, day 1

Every year in Madison, artists come from across the country to set up booths around the capitol square and sell their wares. The art ranges from silver and gold jewelry to surrealist paintings to hand-woven scarves to mixed-media pieces.

I've gone to Art Fair every year since I moved to Madison. A couple of years ago, I went with the owner of our company to help pick out art work to decorate our office buildings and schlep it back home. I still get a kick out of seeing the artwork I helped pick out or carry when I'm on my way from one meeting to another.

This year, I volunteered with the Art Fair through the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, which hosts the event. I spent all day yesterday, well from 11:30 - 6:30, supporting artists by watching their booths while they went and got Starbucks or water or went to the bathroom. Con: it was very hot yesterday and we had to wear these polyester-net overshirts, liked you wear in gym class. Pro: I had a lot of time to look at everything in the booths, especially on the street where I was stationed.

Here are some of my favorites.

Repeats from years past:

Keith Grace Designs	He uses magazine and other clippings, a favorite of mine, to create his work. Then, he paints over the design to add dimension. Yesterday, I saw the a print of the design at the left. We'll see if I make it back over there today to purchase it.
Amy Gillespie	Amy won the best 2D medium work award last year at the Art Fair. She creates wood and felt pieces. My favorite piece that I saw yesterday was a small square out of light wood with the felt in a circle around a bunch of small circles. The felt was light blue, which made the work look like a nest of robin's eggs.
Dolan Geiman	My first Art Fair piece came from Dolan Geiman. It is similar to what you see at the left, with one yellow wood bird cut in to the barnwood background. I love going by this booth each year. There is also a mixed media piece of the United States that I like, and I would love to own a print. Check out his website, because when I went to get the link, I saw that he is collaborating with Fossil. Exciting!

I've got to run now to go help out in the Kid Tent. I've got several more artists that I want to talk about, as well as my time making crafts with kids today. This should keep me in blog posts for the rest of the week! Check out the MMoCA website for more information, and stay tuned for more artists.