The Season of Art Shows

I'm in the midst of some family drama, so apologize for the lack of posts. We did manage to find time to go to the Carefree Fine Art & Wine Festival on Saturday. We really like Carefree (about 1/2 hour west) - there are adobe houses mixed among huge boulders spread throughout. The town is full of quirky/artsy little shops (they actually have an Easy Street).

Not too far from there, a little more to the west, and you end up in Cave Creek which is a very western town, with lots of saloons (each representing its own football team - e.g. Steelers vs Packers), and very western-type stores. Lots of bikers hit this little town, and Saturday was no different.

Back in Carefree, our only surprise was that this art fair had always been free (just like all the others we've attended). This one now cost $3/person just to enter. Apparently the fee isn't new, but it it was new to us, so we weren't really thrilled. I understand charging if you want to do some wine tasting, but just to look at the art? The artists showing in the festival have to pay a pretty hefty fee to be in the thing, now we have to pay too? Phooey.

We decided to pay up since we were already there and wandered around, enjoying the day. I was so happy to be warm. Due to its orientation, our apartment gets absolutely no sun, so it's always 68 in there - like a cave (I have a bad feeling we're going to have the opposite problem come summer). We get all bundled up, walk outside, and think - Hey, it's hot!

Anyway, once we finished sauntering amongst the artwork, we took a drive through the rest of town to see what else was going on. It turned out there was a small Indian art fair going on too. There, we watched an award-winning hoop dancer and took in the smells of fry bread.

 

From there, we headed to the Vu Bistro close to home and had a beer while we took in the view.

This weekend (Jan 24-26th), the Carefree Indian Market & Cultural Festival will be going on (free), so if you missed all this, you have another chance. If you don't care about paying $3 for art, then the Thunderbird Artists will be coming to Fountain Hills in March for a show. We'll go to the free Great Fair in February. Local events are on my calendar, of course.

How's winter treating the rest of you?