ARTISTS UNITED CLUB
  • Home
  • Meetings & Programs
  • Members Gallery
  • Shows
  • Blog
  • Members Only
    • Member Roster
    • Calls For Artists
    • Club Meeting Minutes
    • Member Bylaws and Rules
    • Newsletters
  • Art Links
  • Contact Us

Art Talk...

Seattle Art Fair 2022 by Ron Hammond

8/1/2022

0 Comments

 
​I should title this blog post “confessions of an art junky”.  I know only a few people whose appetite for looking at art is more voracious than mine.
The Seattle Art Fair, founded in 2015 by the late Paul Allen -- his heirs promptly discontinued all his art-oriented philanthropy -- is now an independent event.  
Hooray, after a two years pandemic pause it was last weekend at the Lumen Field Event Center.  I lost count but something like 80 galleries from all over the USA and a few from other countries trotted out their latest and greatest.
I love it!  I’ve been looking forward to it for months.
I am energized even by the work that I do not understand, do not understand why anyone would buy, do not understand why anyone would make it in the first place.  At a rule-of-thumb level of accuracy I guess that I can walk by perhaps 80% of the work in the fair with no more than a glance, 15% of the work I can say to myself “very well done but no thrill” – the remaining 5% are the relatively few pieces that blow me out of my socks, leave me literally weak in the knees.
One of the endearing aspects of this particular art show is a particularly northwest issue – I wander about in jeans and a striped t-shirt and the galleryists don’t know whether I’m a penniless retired engineer (true) or a high-tech millionaire (false).  I stopped to admire a dazzling Art Nouveau poster of the 5th Vienna Sucession (1892) in a vintage bronze frame (price tag $58000) and had an engaging conversation comparing this piece with Alphonse Mucha’s contemporary work.
The hit of the show is a brand new glass sculpture by Preston Singletary.  https://seattleartfair.com/projects/killer-whale-totem/  The photograph in this link doesn’t do it justice.  It is stunning.  Placed in the entry court of the event center my immediate reaction was “Well, I can go home now.  Nothing else will top this!”  The back of this piece is flat and polished to a mirror surface so that you look through it to the sculptured and sand-blasted figures on the front.
I can hardly wait for next year’s fair.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020

    All
    Creativity
    Diversity
    Photography

    RSS Feed

About

Programs
Blog

Members

Shows
Gallery

Members Only

Support

Contact
​Art Links
​
© COPYRIGHT 2022. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Home
  • Meetings & Programs
  • Members Gallery
  • Shows
  • Blog
  • Members Only
    • Member Roster
    • Calls For Artists
    • Club Meeting Minutes
    • Member Bylaws and Rules
    • Newsletters
  • Art Links
  • Contact Us