Bethesda Fine Arts Festival next Saturday

Get enthusiastic for art, amusement, food stuff & extra at the yearly Bethesda Fine Arts Competition on Saturday, May 14 (10am – 6pm) & Sunday, May perhaps 15 (10am – 5pm)! Stroll Norfolk & Auburn Avenues to see 100+ artist booths, hear to wonderful tunes & get pleasure from foodstuff, wine & beer for the fantastic weekend in downtown Bethesda.

All no cost and also a good deal of free of charge parking!

Particulars here.

You can see the Bethesda Good Arts Pageant 2022 artists below.

You know what’s coming upcoming – my awards for top artists in the display.  As a amazing juror, I can use my professional eye from the thumbnails and web-site visits to award the Campello awards.

For the painters I liked  Zhiyi Li (from Enfield, CT) in Booth #66, and Thomas Williams (from Chicago, IL) in Booth #78.  

All 3 printmakers in the demonstrate are exceptional — I have composed a good deal about Joseph Craig English from Washington Grove, MD (Booth #84) – in this show John Pernell and Michael Nemnich are also pretty superior.

For Mixed Media, my top select was Sandra Sedmak Engel, whose sensual do the job is a pleasure equally to the eye and the eros that outdoor demonstrates typically try out to remove.

There are a whole lot of proficient photographers in the demonstrate. See them all below. James Richmond from Titusville, Florida (Booth #76) went to Cuba and has the necessary images of old 1950s automobiles in Havana, as I comprehend that the Cuban dictatorship will not permit holidaymakers (and photographers in particular) to depart from the jailed island except proof is introduced at the airport that photos of the vintage vehicles have been taken.  

Pet peeve apart, Richmond has an exceptional eye for capturing the grace that is human type, all the way from Portuguese card gamers in Old Europe to lovely indigenous females in Panama, to Cuban farmers in the brutalized Castro Brothers’ Employees Paradise.

Cuban farmer by James Richmond

It is a excellent photograph, capturing the essence of the Cuban guajiro, his historical Basque bloodlines nevertheless very cleaning working through his veins as evidenced by the telltale ear lobe, a broad smile for the American tourist on his thin lips, and a hand-rolled Habano in his mouth, the envy of each smoker millionaire all-around the world.

In the class of sculpture, Tanya Tyree caught my focus as her sculptures struggle in between talented efficiency and a little bit of whimsy. What is obvious is a straight and distinctive eyesight getting sent by the (I suspect) incredibly sturdy and qualified hands of this artist.

And the Campello pick for Finest in Clearly show?

It goes to painter Cassie Taggart from Rehoboth, DE in Booth #51.

Parachutes by Cassie Taggart

Although any individual can right away see that Taggart’s operate discover surrealism, what she has brilliantly accomplished is to supply a new 21st century edition of surrealism, where by her expert painting skills marry it with fantasy, and the fantastical (which is different) as perfectly as a balanced dose of narrative storytelling.  

It is “otherworldly” artwork deeply anchored in facts which life hidden in our ancestral brain.  This is do the job which the moment you acquire it and dangle it in your property, will dominate every little thing else which you have hung on these partitions.

Go outdoors and see some artwork this weekend, talks to artists and artisans, take in some lousy-for-you foods and listen to some outside music.