Every year, the last weekend in July is the Bellevue Arts and Crafts Fair.  For 2020 and 2021, the fair was not held, due to the onerous Covid restrictions by the Dictator of Washington State.  The Fair was back this year, and just as wonderful as always.  Sponsored by the Bellevue Arts Museum, parts of the Bellevue Square Mall parking garage are given over to exhibitor booths, with sales and displays of all kinds of arts and crafts.  You see everything from blown-glass to ceramics, to wall and floor sculpture, and photography and textiles.  There are all varieties of jewelry, tall mobiles, working water fountains, and  collages of “found objects”.  Like these.  From the sign, you can see they’re called Fobots.

In spite of the 90-degree weather, we went, and strolled through the garage and up and down the outside roadway, marveling at the range of art objects for sale.   Items sold for a few dollars, to thousands of dollars.  Here is a sampling of what we enjoyed there.

My regular readers will know how much I like fountains, and that I think the sound of running water was Nature’s original music.  We saw some very beautiful and clever fountains.

That exhibitor also had some ceramic sculptures that we just loved.

You can see the artist’s other works in the background.  Hubby really likes crows, so this one stood out.

We saw all sorts of wall sculptures and plaques from multiple artists.

Returning this year was a creator who builds tall mobiles, with found objects and brightly-colored glass pieces.  Every one is a treat for the eyes.  There wasn’t much wind this year, so nothing was moving very much.

This one was about eight feet high.

A new artist this year created hand-made leather book bindings, and she had a huge number of varieties on display, all of them beautiful.

In the photography category, we were most impressed with a photographer who took large-format photos and made them into metal wall plaques.  Sorry for the reflections, but they all had very reflective surfaces.  We were really taken with the shots of the Trinity College, Dublin, library.

What a beautiful space!  I wonder if tourists are allowed in.

There was a considerable amount of humor around.  I just laughed at this poster outside a booth.

And I found this unusual statue.  Remember, I am into ancient Egypt these days, so this one really caught my attention.

I do wonder what motivated the artist.

I am a big fan of glass art, and I was really taken with this.  At first, I thought it was a textile display, but, upon closer inspection, it was glass!  Woven to look like cloth, very clever and beautiful, don’t you think?

Finally, I usually buy at least one thing at the Fair, and this year was no different.  We passed by this artist’s booth when we first got there, and I was quite taken with the idea of the artist’s material, and how she used it.  This is the sign on the outside corner of her booth.

You can see in the background on the sign, a necklace with glass balls attached.  She works with tiny blown-Pyrex spheres, and suspends them, singly and in multiples, from necklaces or earrings.  They are different colors, as well as clear.  I bought a pair of beautiful earrings.  Here’s the artist holding them.

Thanks, Melissa!  I will wear the earrings proudly.  The artist is Melissa Schmidt from Missouri, and her Web site is: www.melissaschmidtstudio.com.  Drop by and see her beautiful work!