You've gotta have art

A bit of self-indulgence yesterday with a visit to the salon for a pedicure. Gardening in sandals is hell on nail polish. On the way to the salon (for you Denverites, it's Fifth Avenue Nails in Cherry Creek. On Third Avenue, natch. They do the best pedicures) we had to pass through the Cherry Creek Arts Festival.

We stopped to say high to our friend Diane Harty, who makes the best garden and garden-party accessories around: Hats!
She uses braided straw and the hats are truly works of art. If I weren't so lazy I'd take a photo of the one I have for this post. Maybe later.

I'm not a big fan of art festivals; I feel overwhelmed too quickly. Lots of great paintings, photos, sculptures, jewelry, ceramics and furniture, but it's too much to process, and usually it's hot and crowded. You can't back up to look at a piece because you'll bump into someone behind you, and several other someones will push in front of you and block your view. One of them will probably be pushing a stroller. It's a good spot for people-watching, though. It might've been interesting to spend some time just photographing the fashions à la The Sartorialist. Like this fellow all in blue, who obligingly posed for me.

We had to backtrack to find Jimmy Descant's booth. I've posted on his rocket sculptures before. He did an entire series for the Rocket Apartments in Denver.
Formerly a New Orleans resident, he lost most of his materials in Katrina. Now he lives in Salida, Colorado, where it's a lot dryer. So much so, he said, that he's having to spray down one DC-bound sculpture every few days to see which parts might rust. (It will be a large outdoor piece, with a water heater as a body.)

But there are a lot of good materials here, he said, so that's an upside, too.

After an hour of seeing just one small corner of the festival, we'd had enough. We did make one more art stop, but I'll post about that later.