Krasl Art Fair, St Joseph, MI 2009

What a fantastic weekend we had! The weather was fabulous for the Krasl Art Fair on the Bluff. It was our first time at the Krasl Art Fair but we are experienced art fair goers and have attended many others over the years. The ones we have attended the most often are the Ann Arbor, Michigan Art Fairs. I'm sure those combined must be the biggest in the country. It's impossible to get through them all in one day. The Wyandotte, Michigan art fair is also quite large but can't compare with Ann Arbor.

The Krasl Art Fair is much more contained (to Lake Bluff Park) than any other art fair I've been to. That is both a plus and a minus. It makes for a shorter walking distance but tighter packed crowds. Krasl also has a much more beautiful backdrop (Lake Michigan) than any I've previously attended. You just can't beat that!



The best thing about art fairs is the variety of art available in one place at one time. You can stroll along and pass up the types you're not interested in and pop in to the booths that catch your eye. Here are some that caught my eye...
These paintings really appealed to me. If they hadn't been priced over my limit I would have bought one. I'm rather fickle when it comes to art. I get bored with it rather quickly so I don't allow myself to spend over $100 on any one piece. All the larger pieces I liked were priced over that.
These clay pieces were quite fetching. I loved the bright colors and the subject matter... dogs, cats, and flowers. I bought a piece as a Christmas gift for someone... now I've officially started my Christmas shopping ;-)
These metal sculptures caught my attention. As you can see, this guy specializes in sculptures of fish. I bought the copper walleye... top fish on the right side. Now I have a good Lake Michigan fish for my kitchen that won't smell the place up!

This gal was selling Pysanky Ukrainian eggs and boy were they beautiful! I must admit I was tempted, but choosing just one was too difficult a task. They were all gorgeous!

One of the other really fun things to do at art fairs is to people watch. People that are drawn to art fairs tend to dress colorfully, have you ever noticed that? And then there are the children... totally bored with the whole thing and they just want to go home. This little one found her daddy's shoe fascinating. So she just refused to walk anymore, sat down, and grabbed his shoe with both hands. Dad had a world of patience and he allowed her to take his shoe off and try it on for herself while throngs of people streamed by...
And then of course one shoe wasn't enough so she had to try on both shoes...
Once she got them on, dad helped her walk in them as this other little guy looked on with shoe envy...
And then dad's patience for this game came to an end. He sat her down and put her own shoes back on, picked her up, and went on his merry way. She didn't protest either. I guess she was content to have strutted her stuff in the big green shoes!

Altogether D and I spent 2 hours walking the length of the Krasl Art Fair. After that we were plenty ready to make our way back to our car. There were shuttle buses available from satellite parking lots but we didn't use them. We used our usual method... drive around the area until we spot someone pulling out and grab the space. We managed to park just one short block from Lake Bluff Park. :-)

Here's a picture of Walleye in the kitchen over the doorway...
We had a nice time at the Krasl Art Fair and I look forward to going again next year!

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