Bethesda Fine Arts Festival this weekend!

Get psyched for art, entertainment, foodstuff & far more at the once-a-year Bethesda Great Arts Festival on Saturday, May well 14 (10am – 6pm) & Sunday, May 15 (10am – 5pm)! Stroll Norfolk & Auburn Avenues to see 100+ artist booths, listen to fantastic songs & get pleasure from foods, wine & beer for the best weekend in downtown Bethesda.

All cost-free and also lots of cost-free parking!

Specifics here.

You can see the Bethesda Great Arts Pageant 2022 artists in this article.

You know what’s coming next – my awards for major artists in the clearly show.  As a amazing juror, I can use my professional eye from the thumbnails and web page 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 three printmakers in the demonstrate are outstanding — I’ve published a whole lot about Joseph Craig English from Washington Grove, MD (Booth #84) – in this show John Pernell and Michael Nemnich are also rather very good.

For Mixed Media, my major select was Sandra Sedmak Engel, whose sensual perform is a satisfaction both of those to the eye and the eros that out of doors reveals normally check out to eradicate.

There are a ton of talented photographers in the demonstrate. See them all right here. James Richmond from Titusville, Florida (Booth #76) went to Cuba and has the required photographs of previous 1950s cars and trucks in Havana, as I recognize that the Cuban dictatorship will not allow holidaymakers (and photographers specially) to depart from the jailed island except evidence is offered at the airport that photographs of the classic automobiles have been taken.  

Pet peeve aside, Richmond has an extraordinary eye for capturing the grace that is human form, all the way from Portuguese card players in Previous Europe to stunning indigenous gals in Panama, to Cuban farmers in the brutalized Castro Brothers’ Employees Paradise.

It is a superb photograph, capturing the essence of the Cuban guajiro, his ancient Basque bloodlines even now quite cleansing managing via his veins as evidenced by the telltale ear lobe, a extensive smile for the American vacationer on his slender lips, and a hand-rolled Habano in his mouth, the envy of each and every smoker millionaire about the world.

“Cuban Farmer” by James Richmond

In the category of sculpture, Tanya Tyree caught my interest as her sculptures wrestle amongst proficient efficiency and a bit of whimsy. What is obvious is a straight and one of a kind vision remaining shipped by the (I suspect) quite sturdy and expert palms of this artist.

And the Campello pick for Greatest in Display?

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

Parachutes by Cassie Taggart

Although any individual can straight away see that Taggart’s operate discover surrealism, what she has brilliantly carried out is to produce a new 21st century variation of surrealism, the place her experienced painting skills marry it with fantasy, and the fantastical (which is diverse) as nicely as a nutritious dose of narrative storytelling.  

It is “otherworldly” artwork deeply anchored in data which lives hidden in our ancestral mind.  This is get the job done which after you buy it and cling it in your property, will dominate every little thing else which you have hung on individuals walls.

Go outside the house and see some artwork this weekend, talks to artists and artisans, take in some undesirable-for-you foodstuff and listen to some out of doors music.