Bethesda Fine Arts Festival next Saturday

Get energized for artwork, leisure, foodstuff & far more at the once-a-year Bethesda Great Arts Festival on Saturday, May 14 (10am – 6pm) & Sunday, May perhaps 15 (10am – 5pm)! Stroll Norfolk & Auburn Avenues to see 100+ artist booths, listen to terrific music & love foodstuff, wine & beer for the best weekend in downtown Bethesda.

All no cost and also loads of free parking!

Details below.

You can see the Bethesda High-quality Arts Pageant 2022 artists here.

You know what is actually coming subsequent – my awards for top rated artists in the demonstrate.  As a good juror, I can use my knowledgeable 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 remarkable — I have penned a whole lot about Joseph Craig English from Washington Grove, MD (Booth #84) – in this demonstrate John Pernell and Michael Nemnich are also very superior.

For Mixed Media, my major decide on was Sandra Sedmak Engel, whose sensual work is a satisfaction equally to the eye and the eros that outdoor demonstrates generally attempt to reduce.

There are a great deal of talented photographers in the present. See them all below. James Richmond from Titusville, Florida (Booth #76) went to Cuba and has the necessary pics of old 1950s cars in Havana, as I understand that the Cuban dictatorship will not allow vacationers (and photographers specially) to depart from the jailed island unless evidence is presented at the airport that photos of the vintage automobiles have been taken.  

Pet peeve aside, Richmond has an fantastic eye for capturing the grace that is human variety, all the way from Portuguese card players in Outdated Europe to attractive indigenous women in Panama, to Cuban farmers in the brutalized Castro Brothers’ Employees Paradise.

Cuban farmer by James Richmond

It is a amazing photograph, capturing the essence of the Cuban guajiro, his historic Basque bloodlines however fairly cleansing running through his veins as evidenced by the telltale ear lobe, a vast smile for the American vacationer on his slim lips, and a hand-rolled Habano in his mouth, the envy of each smoker millionaire about the planet.

In the class of sculpture, Tanya Tyree caught my focus as her sculptures wrestle among gifted efficiency and a bit of whimsy. What is crystal clear is a straight and distinctive eyesight remaining sent by the (I suspect) really strong and expert hands of this artist.

And the Campello decide on for Most effective in Clearly show?

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

Parachutes by Cassie Taggart

When anyone can right away see that Taggart’s work examine surrealism, what she has brilliantly done is to produce a new 21st century edition of surrealism, where her expert painting skills marry it with fantasy, and the fantastical (which is various) as properly as a healthful dose of narrative storytelling.  

It is “otherworldly” artwork deeply anchored in information which lives concealed in our ancestral mind.  This is get the job done which when you acquire it and hang it in your property, will dominate every little thing else which you have hung on these walls.

Go outside the house and see some artwork this weekend, talks to artists and artisans, eat some bad-for-you meals and listen to some out of doors songs.