Three things I liked at the Fort Worth Art Festival

Me and Meredith [sic], who haven't been much for public festivals lately, loaded Sam up in our new used car on Sunday and headed out to the Fort Worth Main Street Art Festival.

We didn't stay long, but had a decently good time. Right now, I'm hacked at myself for not thinking to bring a camera. They had a three-piece cowboy band that Sam started clapping with, and I could have used a picture of that.

As far as the merchandise -- mostly not bad. I have this theory, that most people who are art novices have only seen the biggest, best masterpieces in art history. Therefore, when I've visited art festivals in the past, I've kept wondering exactly why nothing stacks up that "David" statue I remember seeing on TV. And that painting's stark, but it ain't "American Gothic," you know.

So, this year, I went with relaxed expectations and enjoyed the offerings a bit more.

Things fell into these categories:

• Things I wanted now (see below).
• Things I want for my mantuary someday. (This mainly included some dark western art, angry dragon and horny toad statues, and some of the more clever junk sculpture.)
• Things I found amusing and/or cute. (More junk sculpture.)
• Things where I wondered, "What kind of sick, sick man would want this above his fireplace, next to the picture of mama?"
• No thanks, I'd rather watch my own paint dry.

My favorite stuff:
Books from Mind's Eye Journals. I've wanted something like this for a long time, even though I don't really see myself writing the more mundane stuff that I generally put in my own cheap journal from WalMart. If you're willing to spring $70 for one of these babies, you'd better be writing something like "the wide expanse of prairie gave us no coverage as better than 250 Comanches topped the ridge and charged."



I squealed like a schoolgirl when I saw this: Artist Chris Smith's rendition of a Texas map with battles from the state's past marked and dated. He's done it in an old-timey style and it looks fantastic. I noticed that he even had the Battle of Yellowhouse Canyon, which is important to me because I happened to stumble on the Wikipedia entry while doing random searches of Lubbock stuff. I didn't spend much time at the booth because I knew I'd be begging to take something home if I did.



Which I couldn't, because we had already bought Sam this picture, called "The Audition," from artist John Sumner. It's not something that I'd necessarily buy if we didn't have a kid, but it goes well with the general art theme of Sam's room, which is "Dogs are cool."