You already know I have a life list and I was able to check an entry off earlier in the year.  Well, I was able to check another one off today.  I always wanted to purchase a piece of fine art.  The closest I have ever come to this is some wolf paintings I bought a long time ago at the Eagle Days in the Quad Cities.  I really don’t count this because it was not really an art show as much as a craft display.  The artist was there and signed them, but again, not what I had intended when I put the entry on the list.  A number of stars aligned today that I decided I had to take advantage of.

The Peoria Riverfront was hosting their annual Fine Art Fair.  I was always intrigued by it since it actually carried a description indicating it was not a pretentious affair.  Yesterday, I was sent an email by a coworker indicating her husband’s band was performing at 10:00AM at the same event.  Ah, the extra nudge to get me to wake up early on a Saturday and trek the 30 minutes down to the Illinois River.  I decided I needed some guiding principles to keep in mind while trying to acquire my fine art piece.

• I decided $200 was my limit for my first piece (need to ease into this whole artsy thing)
• The artist must be present at the booth – part of the thrill should be actually engaging with the artist to learn a little bit about the concept and creativity involved
• The piece cannot be something I could actually create myself with less than a year’s concentrated effort (at least get close visually without the scrutiny of an artist’s eye).  This automatically eliminates the yard utensil art and any tile mosaic pieces (the latter since I can already do that now).
• I should not be able to purchase a similar piece at a local (non-art retail) store
• I will not purchase from a vendor that fits the “snobby artist” profile – you know, “The I’m better that you and you are not qualified to look at my wonderful creations much less explain them to you”
• I will not be pressured by the vendor into purchasing a particular item.  I can’t stand people pushing product on me including the product vendors at work and the food sample ladies prowling the local convenience stores
• I will take the time to look at every booth (if even just in passing) before I make my decision
• The piece has to impress me or be unique enough to really capture my attention
• I cannot acquire something I would be embarrassed by other people seeing it in my house (think naked lady statues)
• I have to be able to get it home

I thought this was a pretty good list, but gave myself the option to augment If I had to.  Remember, I have never been to an art fair before so I really did not know what to expect.  Thanks to a late night of Rock Band 2 (crested 1.2Million fans last night and probably ranked in the 2,000s now) I was a little groggy this morning, but the anticipation of checking the list item overcame that as I headed to the event.  Confusing at first, there were actually a lot of parking lot spaces available in a lot right by the fair.  Once I arrived at the ticket area, I realized the show did not start until 10:00AM (actually Art Guild Members were able to enter an hour earlier).  I took a walk and enjoyed the riverfront for a little bit and returned when the show opened.  I heard the band warming up and figures I would check out the various booths first and then decide which pieces stood out while taking in a few songs.  That would be a good indication of something that impressed me.  Some booths I was able to pass fairly quickly through – jewelry items, pottery and photographs really was not on the radar.  Besides, I already have a really nice piece of pottery of friend of ours hand made for us last Christmas.  Unfortunately, my first rule ended up filtering out a lot of opportunities.   It was not uncommon to see $8K and $10K pieces causing my heart to stop a couple of times merely due to fear I was going to knock them over if I got too close – assuming the you broke it, you own it principle applied here.  Pleasantly, there really was not any vendors that were in the “push” mode.  Almost all of them simply manned their booth, had cheerful words to say as you passed and let you browse at will.  Note, due to my unfamiliarity with the whole scene, I was being careful not to touch anything.

After looking at every booth, I decided to go see the band play.  As I neared the stage, I was caught a little off guard by the type of music being played since it sounded more like gospel which was not what I was expecting at all.  A quick scan of the stage confirmed my confusion and decided that someone had given me bogus information – Oh well, more time to devote to finding the perfect art piece.  After reviewing all of the booths in my head I decided there was 4 booths worth going back to for further scrutiny.  Two of these were specializing in very distinctive wooden vases/containers with unique woods.  After going back to each of these I discovered a very similar piece at both booths.  This concerned me a little bit since it didn’t seem that distinctive if two artists could create an eerily similar piece of art.  That left me two other booths to go check out – hit the continue link to see what I ended up buying.

So the two remaining booths both contained blown glass items.  I’ve always liked this form of art and definitely something that is probably out of my realm of skill (at least within a year’s effort).  I looked everything over again at on of the booths and narrowed down the selections based on the prices – funny how the things I really like must also be the ones the artist liked based on the price tags put on some of those items.  After finding two items that fit the guidelines, I went to the other booth and came up with the two items I liked best there (again, that met the guidelines).  I wandered off again to waste some time, mainly checking out the other attendees to see if there were signs of others going through the process.  After about 15 minutes I pondered on the two booths and decided that one of them was maintaining my attention.  So….. I went back to that booth and devoted more time to the two pieces I had previously decided upon.  That’s when I was checked off another guideline.  As I was looking at them blown glass (for the third time), the artist granted me permission to handle any of the pieces I wanted to get a better look.  Fantastic, an artist that fits the bill and trusts me to check out his handiwork.  Still aware of the implied break and buy, I picked up one of the pieces and started looking it over.  The artist then gave me some background on the piece and actually explained how he went about making it.  Some of it was a little over my head, but I definitely had a feel for what was involved.  Yes, this was definitely the right piece to start my art collection with.  A unique handcrafted.. actually hand blown… fine art that met all of my guidelines… especially the price!

So here it is – it was actually difficult to photograph, so my apologies for the image quality.

Front

Left Side

Back

Right Side

As with probably all art pieces, it looks a lot better in person.  For those curious, this is the artist.

So now you might be asking yourself if I really hit my last guiding principle or not… the one concerning the getting it home issue.  Well, as it turns out it is pretty small.

But the best part of all is that I came in way under budget.  I was able to check an item off my Life List for a mere $40.  Next up, that lithograph of the Rolling Stones by Ron Wood.   Now I have to go work on some feature lighting for my little piece of creativity.