Scottsdale Celebration of Fine Art

My mother has been involved in the arts community for over 20 years. Growing up she used to take me to the art openings at the museums she worked for. I always used to imagine some dashingly handsome brooding artist (my age, of course) would come and sweep me off my feet. Well, turns out that it was an engineer who did the sweeping, but I still love to attend art shows with my mom. Back in March we went to the Scottsdale Celebration of Fine Art. My mom and I have been wanting to go for several years, but this was the first time the stars aligned for us and I'm so glad they did. This yearly celebration brings together some of the most diverse and interesting artists from all over the country. And the most interesting thing to me about this show is that you get to meet the artists. Unlike a traditional gallery show, where the artist comes to the opening but then goes on to other things, at Celebration, the artists stay with their booths daily and many work on pieces while there. So not only do you get to see them working, you also have the opportunity to talk with them and learn more about their vision. It was so inspiring to watch them create and to listen to their stories. I even bought my first piece of art!

Here are some of my favorite artists from the event...

Black Dahlia 1839 by Sondra Wampler

Sondra Wampler

creates stunning black and white botanical photographs. She painstakingly arranges the flowers in beautiful still lifes and then, using her negatives from a medium format camera, creates huge prints. They are captivating and I could spend all day staring at the delicate forms her work celebrates.

Lost In America No. 1 by Timothy Wampler

Using toy cameras, her husband Timothy Wampler takes a different approach, but his work is no less amazing. Also working in black and white, his landscapes are hauntingly beautiful. I love how he takes the simplest things and through his perspective turns them into art.

6th South Exit by James Randle

I also loved the work of James Randle. He paints realistic cityscapes. He doesn't paint famous landmarks or beautiful buildings. He's more my style, with gritty power lines and back alleyways. What really drew me to his work was how he transforms his scenes from something mundane to something majestic. This is one of my goals with my work as well--to take some thing simple from every day life and display it in such a way that it is elevated to something beautiful.

So I'm sensing a theme here, one that just dawned on me as I wrote this post--I'm drawn to artists who use their attention to make us mindful of the beauty in simple, everyday themes.

Moving On by Melissa Behr

Melissa's work is probably the most conceptual of the artists I enjoyed. Combining both paint and photography, she painstakingly transfers her photographs onto canvas using acrylic gel medium then paints around/over the image to complete her piece. I really enjoyed getting to speak with Melissa and we have a lot in common--former acting career, young children, love of photography.