Summer Art Festivals

Summer art festivals are in full swing and give PNWS members the chance to have some fun, share with fellow members and do some serious educational work for the hordes of folks that come looking for something interesting going on. The summer started with the Troutdale Art Festival last month, continues with the Vancouver Art Festival at the beginning of August and culminates with Art in the Pearl at the beginning of September.

The town of Troutdale gives over their main street for the festival and PNWS had a central spot for sculpture demos and raku firing. Thanks to Andy, Jessica, Leslie and Nathan LacQuaye for all the volunteer hours you put in to make this a success. PNWS partnered with Nathan Oresco from Mount Hood Community College to raku fire MHCC student’s sculptures as part of the demonstration. The weather was cooking and so were the kilns. We fired over 50 masks made by members and others in the 2 days.

The Vancouver Art and Music Festival is in Ester Short Park, downtown Vancouver on August 1,2&3rd. PNWS has been offered a booth to do sculpture demos and Jessica Stroia is looking for members to take a slot to demonstrate your skills and techniques. Contact her at jessica.stroia@gmail.com if interested.  It’s a wonderful opportunity to get your work out in front of the public, and although sales are not supposed to happen through the demo booth, arrangements can be made for later purchases. A major goal of our organization is education, and festivals provide a wide audience of art-oriented folks eager to learn what we do and how we do it.

I will be hosting another animal maskmaking workshop on July 13th at my studio to create masks to be raku fired in conjunction with VAMF at a site near the festival. contact me at brussellford@gmail.com if you would like to be included in this workshop.

The third festival of the summer is Art in the Pearl on Labor Day weekend and PNWS has been a presence on the row of demonstrators at this event for decades. This highly juried show in the heart of downtown Portland always draws a large crowd. We are again looking for PNWS members to volunteer to take a time slot to demo your work. Nathan LacQuaye and I will be a part of the demo crew doing raku firing of masks as we have for several years now. I will be hosting another maskmaking workshop in Gladstone on August 9th to generate masks to fire at the Pearl. Contact Leslie leslie@lesliecristart.com to join in the fun.