City Place Art

By Dian Vujovich

If you missed the City Place Art Fair over the weekend, you missed a terrific outing. It was reminiscent of the good ole days when SunFest was just beginning and admission free. Those were the days when the whole idea behind the Fest was to bring new life to a shoulder season.

City Place’s two-day affair, however, represented a delightful entree into a season where hope is running high that this year will be more financially rewarding than last. And if foot traffic is considered any indication of that, things at this event looked good. Have no idea of how vendor sales’ really fared.

Personally, I found the Art Fair to be success on a number of fronts: The weather and location were terrific and topped off with a representation of quality work from more than 200 artists.

Oh, and did I mention, free? I like free. Think it’s good for business, sometimes. So I enjoyed strolling when the weather wasn’t sweltering, all the dogs and their owners weren’t barking at one another and there were few food concessions around to muck things up.

Plus, end of the day last day walks always offer the chance that vendors might—might— cut you a break on what they’re peddling.

I tried getting a deal on some ceramic bowels but had no luck. The artist said she had nine more shows ahead of her and needed the inventory. I bought anyway.

Saw a wonderful whimsical metal sculpture of a good-sized goat, as in life sized, body made all of horseshoes, long eyelashes out of metal, with stomach contents that included an old Texas license plate and some sort of machine gear. Keith Bradley was the artist. Junk Food the name on the piece.

When I inquired about the price, the gal tending his booth said the piece would cost $4500 in a gallery but could be had for $1800 here. Figured the artist would rather leave this hefty piece behind than drag it to his next event, so I went for the haggle: ” Would you take $1200 cash?”

“Not sure, you’ll have to ask the artist.”

And guess what he said.