I had a photo session down in the Deep Ellum Arts District late this afternoon with two of the most adorable little sisters (more on them in an upcoming post), and this just happened to be the weekend for the Deep Ellum Arts Festival. Main Street was closed down to traffic and filled with local artists displaying their work, and there were three staging areas with local bands belting out their tunes. And of course, what would a festival be without corny dogs, funnel cakes and turkey legs - all of which I managed to avoid eating. Not that I didn't want to, but I was too lazy and impatient to wait in line to buy tickets to get the greasy goods. Back to the point.
As I weaved in and out of the crowd going from booth to booth, I was really impressed - and in a couple cases frightened & confused - by some of the work I saw. And regardless of what I thought, it's interesting to see how others think and see when they create their art. Some insanely talented people out there.
Beau Ethridge is one of those people. His work was fascinating to me. I don't even know how to describe it except that it had an urban, gritty feel to it.
Random skateboards that had been painted.
I wish I could remember the artist that created these, but she had these amazing glass mosaics that she framed when she was finished with them. Cool stuff.
Meet Spike. He was a bit camera shy, but can you blame him? Poor little guy.
And of course, I can't get enough of the vintage cars.
Then I found the Iona Handcrafted Books booth, and I was hooked. Mychal Mitchell (pictured below) and Edward Bailey, based in Austin - have been making these breathtaking journals and photo albums from all natural materials by hand for over 10 years now, and they are truly heirloom quality works of art. When I asked Mychal, she said she was inspired during a trip to Italy 15 years ago where she would see artists carrying around small books called Vade Mecum, which is Latin meaning "to go with me", and she decided she wanted to make these available here in the US. I couldn't resist, so I bought one to go with me. I'm stoked about it because I've got a cool idea about how I'm going to use it.
Here's an image showing just a small collection of the the sizes and finishes they had in the booth.
Here's the one I bought... couldn't wait to look at it when I got home.
3 comments:
...can almost smell the leather of those books...gorgeous!! please share later what you plan to do with them
amazing processing on these. Love the first image and the dog rocks!
We saw some journals similar to those last year at the Ft. Worth Art festival. It could have been the same ones. I think I have dreamed about them 4 or 5 times since. The one you selected is just gorgous.
I have a trunk full of store bought journals and empty books just waiting for inspiration to strike. (I think I need a 12 step program. . .) I should pull them all out and photograph them. Can't wait to see how you put this beauty to work. Have a wonderful, blessed week.
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