My Christmas present this year was a trip to ArtFest 2011, an art retreat held every spring in Port Townsend, WA which is northwest of Seattle on the very tip of the Olympic Penninsula. I’ve wanted to attend ArtFest for years, and this was the year it finally all came together. I sent off my registration after Christmas, when spring was still a long ways away. It seemed like April would never get here, then all the sudden it was time to get ready to go! I scrambled around at the last minute (like usual, of course) putting together the supplies for my classes and making items to trade with the other attendees. I had to figure out how to fit all my art supplies, trades, my journals, and my journaling supplies in my luggage. Of course, I did need a few clothes and personal items as well, so I ended up doing some luggage juggling in order to get it all to fit. I really wasn’t thrilled at having to pack long pants and a jacket (!!) since it had already been up in the 90s here in AZ, but for ArtFest, I was willing to make sacrifices. (LOL!)
Wednesday morning, I got up at 3:45 am (ick!!), so I could catch my (early) flight to Seattle. I hadn’t slept much the night before, what with all the last minute packing and being excited about the trip… the flight was pretty uneventful, and even got into Seattle about 30 minutes early, which was nice. ![]()
In the airport, I got the rental car paperwork and met my carpooler Lydia, a fellow first-time ArtFest attendee. We headed out to find the Seattle ferry, which we did with only a few road construction headaches. (who does road construction in a tourist area without putting up detour signs, anyway?!?) Anyway, we finally found the ferry station (?? is that what you call it??), and below is what we saw:
There's the ferry, just pulling away from the dock-- darn it! But that did give us time to head into the local (and by "local" I mean right-next-to-the-parking-lot local) McDonald's for some badly needed caffeine while we waited for the ferry to make its way back. Once it did we all drove on; then Lydia and I hopped out of the car to go up to the observation deck.
Here is the obligatory "photo on the ferry" snapshot, LOL!! Just kidding-- it was pretty cool, since I've never been on a ferry before. It was pretty chilly, too, which is why we went back inside after this shot, but not before I snapped a pretty nice photo of the Seattle skyline.
There were plenty of other people taking pictures outside on deck, as well. It looked like lots of them were re-creating the "king of the world" scene from the movie Titanic, but we headed inside to hang out and watch the scenery for the half-hour ferry ride.
We checked out the vending machine snacks, and I thought about playing a video game or two when I saw this PacMan/Galaga game, but then I saw this:
A dollar?!? What the heck?!?!! I guess it's been a loooong time since the mid-1980s when I would hang out at the arcade after school and play video games for a quarter! Once the ferry landed on Bainbridge Island, we headed out on the highway across the island, across another bridge, and then up the eastern coast of the Olympic Penninsula. Lydia did a very good job of navigating (thank goodness, since I had no idea where I was going!), and we passed the time chatting about art-related and other things. Turns out we're both Geminis, and we have a lot of other things in common, as well- it's interesting how that kind of thing happens, isn't it?!? Once we found the town of Port Townsend, we stopped at the local grocery store for some art-making staples like paper towels and waxed paper (for my painting classes), along with other art-making staples like snacks, wine and chocolate. :D Lydia's friend Kim had been waiting for us at the Port Townsend ferry stop (wondering where the heck we were) but she finally found us at the grocery store and we followed her to the following mysterious destination:
Art supplies-- yay!! Akamai Art Supply was great- lots of fun. (and isn't that car the coolest?? I took a few more pics of it; it's covered with really nifty stencil designs.) The store didn't seem overly large, but it was definitely jam-packed with all sorts of fun stuff. Plus, we got an ArtFest discount; what could be better than that?!? Then we headed to Fort Worden to get our check-in information packets, and Lydia headed back to her bed and breakfast till the Orientation meeting that evening. I found my room, unloaded my stuff, and put on my running shoes to find the beach before it got too late. Here's one photo of the beach and the pier:
I walked down the beach a ways and out onto the pier; I have some more beach photos, but I think I'll finish up my post for now and save those pics for the next installment. The weather was very pleasant (although colder than I was used to in AZ, for sure) the entire time I was there, and the scenery was absolutely gorgeous, but I am sad/happy to say that I was so busy socializing and art-making that I didn't have any other opportunities to explore the area around the fort at all, so I am doubly glad I took the walk on the beach on Wednesday.
I'll post again after I edit more of the almost-200 photos I took. (thank goodness for digital cameras!!)
this pic is the line of people waiting to get into Vendor Night... the instructors set up tables and sell pieces of their artwork, supplies, etc. And it was CRAZY!! (see for yourself, below)
For quite a while, it was practically impossible to even get close to a table, let alone see anything on that table. I didn't buy much; I got a necklace made from WA-state-beach pebbles, to remember my trip by, and some unmounted rubber stamps. And then I got the heck out of there, to catch my breath! The rest of the pics in this post are examples from Show & Tell; everyone could bring pieces made during the classes, to show off. This gives everyone a chance to see what was made in the other classes, and to see what the artists were teaching (to get ideas for picking future classes!)
a beautiful encaustic wax collage. (not sure who taught this class, unfortunately)
I think these pieces were from the class "OverSaturated Polaroid look by Lisa Bebi"... making photocopies look like color-saturated photographs.
a sewn "prayer flag" I think, one of Karen Michel's classes.
a fun journal. Jill Berry class.
this is a blury photo, but I love this piece-- a collage made on a vintage book cover. (I believe this class was taught by Tracie Lyn and Marilyn Huskamp)
this wonderful Santos is entirely handmade (and about 18 inches tall). (not sure who taught this one)
This fantastical creature really intrigued me: this class was all about making a 3-D sculpture on a wire armature, using sausage casing to make the "skin." The sausage casing was wrapped around the armature when it was wet, then would shrink onto the frame as it dried. (not sure who the instructor was for this one, either.)
wonderfully collaged mail-art postcards. (class by Orli Avineri, I believe)
polymer clay quilt, class by Laura Mika.
and this is my Show & Tell scrapbook page: I printed small photos of some of the artwork, arranged them on the page, then collaged other bits and pieces around them till the page was filled in (except for one small space I now see, that I still need to fill in- lol!) This page actually took 2-3 hours to complete, but it was a lot of fun in a meditative sort of way.
