ArtFest occurs every spring in Port Townsend WA. Located on the beautiful grounds of Fort Warden State Park (where the movie “An Officer and a Gentleman” was filmed) hundreds of artsy-crafty folks descend. April 1-5 are this years dates. A total of 27 instructors teach individual classes each day. Last year was my first and what an incredible experience it was! The class line up included Nina Bagley’s “Wee Book”, Catherine Witherell’s “PMC Bird Pendant” and Melissa Manley’s “Starburst Book”. I really enjoyed Melissa Manley as an instructor (and I enjoyed the other two as well) and wanted to take another class from her. She changed her “Gut Instinct” class into creating wire bug forms covered in intestines. Yep, real pig guts. That will take care of Thursday. On Friday I delve into Mary Beth Shaw’s abstract painting class. Now I am not a painter, but she assures the class that all levels are welcome…. Her work so impressed me last year that I purchased one for our house. Now I get a chance to learn how it’s produced! Saturday is Fred Mullet’s fish printing course. I don’t think real fish will be involved or it might have been called gyotaku. Roberta mentioned Fred has a rubber stamp line. Makes sense we will be working with those. Humm, I should probably get going on my supply list for each class.
The best part of ArtFest is staying with all the incredible women of House 4E. What an amazing group of artists! It will be the unveiling of our year-long pass around projects. I’m currently working on Lauren Ohlgren’s “house” project and a page for baby Jai’s ABC book. I’ve heard that my project has grown to an enormous size. The vision was for a non-traditional wall quilt. Can’t wait to see what it has become.
Here are some images from last years projects.
