Labor Day
is a big weekend in Portland partly because we know the gorgeousness of the
weather is not going to last much longer but also because it signals the Art in
the Pearl Festival every year. This year I attended with a dear friend who was
in town so it was twice the fun.
There were
four city blocks of artists, demonstrations, food, and music. Here are a few of
the items that caught my eye. In several cases, the artists did not allow
photos. I’m not quite sure why unless they were concerned that the resulting
photos would not represent their work as well as the professional photos on
their websites. Where I needed to I pulled photos from websites but included
attribution.
These are amazing garments made out of felt. Artist Jenne Giles, paints wool fibers in layers until she has a felt-like background then wetting and rolling it she incorporates natural dyes to create the fabric. It's soft but moldable. Very interesting. Harlequinfeltworks
Loved the rounded edges of these chairs- creates a dichtomy of hard and soft.
I found artist Jolin El-Hai's booth to be one of the most visually stunning booths at the festival. The walls are all dark fabric and these wonderful light installations create a magical glow. These are cake lamps- designed to look like extravagent cakes but act like a tiny lamp.
Gary Knapp at Cats Eye Craftsman creates beautiful clocks made of inlaid wood with glass and metal inserts.
HiiH are ethereal fiber lamps painted with natural dyes such as walnut ink. I can imagine these hanging in an outdoor space.
Kaylaa Milaine of Wire Weavers makes this incredibly delicate and unusual jewelry by crocheting fine wires of sterling, copper, or gold to create light and flexible works of art. The cuff bracelets were my favorite.
I'll chime in on the not allowing photos issue. I do let people photograph my work because I feel like goodwill is worth a lot (saying "no photos" seems grouchy), but I don't particularly like it, especially when they don't ask permission. My reasoning, and that of artists I know, is twofold: 1) Many people who want to photograph are artists/crafters who think they can make it themselves, so they're photographing in order to copy my idea. Lame. 2) I've put a lot of work into the item being photographed and am at the art fair trying to get compensation for that work (plus art festival booth fees can be hundreds or even thousands of dollars). If someone wants to take home my artwork in the form of the original or an image, they should compensate me in some way.
ReplyDeleteIn your case, you want to take a picture to share the person's work with your readers. My guess is that if you told the artist you planned to blog about their work and link to their website, they'd probably be happy to have you snap a photo. I would be. Of course I'm sure it depends quite a bit on the artist and type of work. And your point about them preferring to have control over the photos that represent them is a good one.
Amy
Amy, thank you for the professional opinion and I understand. I always ask- whether it's a show or a store- because I don't want to be sneaky. This was the 1st time where even when I told them I was a blogger and would use their website link etc. people still said no and handed me a postcard. That's why several of the photos are from websites and why I thought they felt their photography would be better than mine- which is entirely possible.
ReplyDelete