Winter Park Art Festival

Florida has some wonderful art shows in the spring, The Winter Park Festival is one of the best. Each year over 1600 artists compete for 250 juried entries. It is celebrating its 51st year this year. Tom and I went today, and it did not disappoint. I did not take any pictures since most of the artists do not want you taking photos of their works, but I have put in links to the websites of some of the ones I liked. If you click on the link above, it will take you to the festival site, and you can click on artists gallery and you can see a representational piece of each artist's work.

A trip to the Festival is not complete without a walk through of Timothy’s Gallery (where I have found some exceptional jewelry over the years) and lunch at Bosporus , a Turkish restaurant on Park Avenue. The nine appetizer tray Tom and I shared was delicious.

here are some of the highlights of the festival

Matthew Cornell His ocean paintings are absolutely spectacular. He always sells out on the first day, and his paintings are pricey. We’re talking a 5” piece in the hundreds. The large ocean water one was in the neighborhood of 10K.

Adam Spector Tom and I bought a couple of his pieces. It was the first time I had seen him at the show.

William Kidd These were wildly fantastic ceramics, very sensual.

Clare Malloy One of these days I’m going to have to take home one of her landscapes. She gets in the show every year.

John Costin Before the show opened he sent me a postcard of his most recent hand colored etching, Pensive Great Blue. Today we saw it at the show. It was spectacular, but almost 48” tall with a very large price tag.

Amy Flynn Tom didn’t care for her found object robots, but I found them delightful to look at. She gets her finds at the Raleigh Flea Market held each weekend at the fairgrounds. I’ll have to make a field trip next time I visit Laurel.

Anthony Pack If you can stand another found object assemblage, his work was fun to look at too.

Emerson Matabele This New Orleans photographer had some of the most engaging photographs of the show. If you click on his website, be sure to click on the tabs at the top of the page called light, wisdom and discovery.

John Petrey This sculpture is very appealing. If you visit the website, be sure to click on the dress series for images. It is fascinating to see his work and know that it is just made of sticks, or asphalt shingles, or cards.

And if you have hung in there this long, I’ll reward you with a photo, and you’ll see that everything at the festival is not “high art”. Here’s Tom with two of my favorites