2009 Shoreline Arts Festival

This was my first year visiting the Shoreline Arts Festival and I was fairly pleased. Going into this, you must understand, I’m from Edmonds. Home of an absolutely huge, intense, overwhelming, people-come-from-far-away arts festival that usually left me with heat stroke, panic, and a need to be in a small dark room and not interact with people for at least three days afterward. So in my adult life I have mostly avoided arts festivals, which is a pretty dumb thing for a professional artist to do. Shoreline, in contrast, was quite pleasantly community based, big enough to have lots to see and small enough not to be overwhelming. I still have enough introvert-excursion-points left over I may even visit Artopia or Live Arts Bothell this weekend, too!

Highlights, for me, of the Shoreline festival:

  • TONS of cool, hands-on art activities for little people, including fish printing; next year I will definitely be bringing the girls!
  • Solid juried art show – the work was of excellent quality, and more varied than I expected. I may enter this next year. Also nice was that they exhibited some of the work that hadn’t passed the jury in the “More Art” rooms (so much nicer a vibe than Salon des Refuses, no?) and while on the whole I agreed with their decisions, there was worthwhile work to be seen there as well.
  • The Marketplace booth layout – which winds among the exterior walkways of the Shoreline Center and thus is at least 50% IN THE SHADE
  • Of the vendors, the two that made the biggest tugs at my pocketbook (but I don’t get paid until Monday, alas) were both hand-screened clothing vendors: the fabulous EclectiKids, which had rockin shirts for tykes AND grownups; the two-headed giraffe and robots were particular favorites, plus super cute bags which are *not* on their website, and Revival Ink, whose elegant designs on eco-friendly fabrics were effortlessly lovely.
  • When we were there, there was a steady flow of people throughout, but not enough to clog the walkways or get irritating. I will definitely go back again next year, and will look into the possibilities of getting a table and selling prints; I haven’t really had many opportunities to be face to face with people as they look at the work.