Wandering around at the 2007 Des Moines Art Festival

After the Farmer's Market, Linda and I headed over to the Des Moines Art Festival. A growing annual tradition, the festival has been rated highly by both the artists and those who come to see and purchase their work. Most of the work was visual arts of varying forms like paintings, sculpture, photography, and printing but there were also three stages with bands performing most of the day. Demonstrations were also going on much of the time. Set up on the Western Gateway greenspace, the setting was very comfortable and spacious enough to handle the large crowds without feeling crowded.

One of the more interesting projects on site was a pair of huge panels of black background with a grid drawn on the face of each. A pretty large, open-sided tent shading several tables was set up next to it. People were lined up, waiting for their turn at a table. They were given a set of some sort of crayon and a small (about one inch square) portion of the image to reproduce on what appeared to be a Masonite square about one foot on each side. As each person completed their square, it was passed up to the two men on a lift to be fastened to the appropriate place in the panel. The two images being produced were based on Van Gogh's Starry Night and Irises. It was a very successful participation project as I saw men, women, boys, and girls all taking their turns contributing their square.

As were were making our way back to the car, we paused at a bench near the library and watched as people of all ages took their turns cooling their feet in the water sculpture in front of the new library. The fountain is almost more of a stone sided stream running a graceful arc across the ground between the front door of the library and the eastern end of the art festival. Tiny spillways and large, rough cut stones well suited for seating break up the run and provide a interesting variety as young and old made their way along. At the lower end, the water cascades over a short wall onto what is effectively a portion of the sidewalk. A grate drains the water before it gets to the regular walkway but that little bit of water spilling over the side was a powerful magnet for hot feet. While kids generally showed the way, nearly as many adults followed their lead into the refreshing little pools.

The image in the lower left and upper right look like there were only a few people present. The upper right was taken after the first wave of people had passed by after opening on Sunday. The lower left was also chosen more for the grandmother and two children rather then another shot that had closer to a dozen people sloshing around. In hindsight, I probably should have taken shots that showed the people.