Artfest 2009

Today we headed down to the annual Artfest held in downtown Fort Myers. We thought that we might just go for an hour and leave, but we wound up loving it and staying for hours. I got some photos of some of my favorite work (I usually would ask the artist whether they were okay with me taking photos before I took these pictures, unless the artist was unavailable.)

The show had over 200 vendors, with 60% of them coming from outside of our area.


So we had lots to see.

Unfortunately I didn't get this woman's name. I liked her sculptures.


This one had a music box built into it that played Fur Elise when you cranked it.


I didn't get this artist's name either:


However the following sculptures are creations of Michael Costello:




I loved his work. His pieces are very kinetic. See the center pieces in his work? Like the zig-zag in the center of sculpture below and the one to the right of it?


These pieces are wood with stone balls at the tip, and they swing forward and backward. Very beautiful.

The one below is actually a vase. See the greenery coming out of it?


And this one had a very "African" look to it.


These people, Rick and Linda Bachman, had some of my favorite work.


It was very "whimsical" and fun.




This outhouse was fun.




Julia Atkins had some interesting artwork.



This guy, Clayton Swartz, had some really colorful work.


Particularly this fish.


Todji Kurtzman has some really interesting stuff. I didn't ask him whether I could take photos of his work, but I do have this card that I picked up that shows some of it.


And he had brought a large sculpture to put on display that I did get a photo of. I like the perspective here, because it looks like the sculpture figure and the father and daughter are looking at one another.


And I got a shot of Woodrow checking out the sculpture.


Regrettably I did not get the names of some of the artists. There was one guy who has traveled around the world and had the most unbelievable photography from places like Tibet, Cambodia and Thailand. And another that had the most spectacular shots of the Tuscan countryside (Robert Chapman? Roger Cochran? Something like that).

This artist had really interesting sculptures merging food and the human form, although this banana split doesn't show too much of that.


While we walked around, I found that I liked the look of the sailboat masts against this palm tree, but I had a hard time finding a decent angle thanks to the beverage vendor in front of me that I was trying to keep out of the photo.


On our way out of the show, I spotted this sculpture and thought that it was interesting.


At the end of the day, we sat down by the Edison/Ford/Firestone fountain.




Our city was the winter home for Thomas Edison and Henry Ford and Firestone. In fact, the Thomas Edison Winter Estate is located here, and the Ford estate is also located on the property.

This fountain has a lot of real "South Florida" elements in it. There is the gator...


...and baby gators.


The frogs are spitting water...


...the sea otters are frolicking...


...there's the momma manatee and calf...




...and fish swimming.


I got a shot of one of the big banyan trees downtown (I think that they came from Edison's banyan tree)...


...and a shot of the setting sun through another tree.


It was a nice day. Too bad there wasn't much money to spend. But I did buy a couple of magnets from Robert Jones. I got one for me...


...and one for Woodrow.


On the way home, we pulled over when we got close to home and got some shots of the setting sun.






And I finished with a shot of one of the owls, who seemed to also be enjoying the sunset.


It was a VERY good day!