Art-a-Whirled

This afternoon, we rocked the scene at Art-a-Whirl, the big Minneapolis art festival. Mainly, we went to support our friend Karin, who makes some great jewelry, but we had a great time in general. There aren't many other places to see this mix of people: artists in their precise and complicated clothing, aspirational bourgeois like myself, lots of real or apparent collectors in suits too nice for a Saturday afternoon, chardonnay-sipping Edinans with money to bizzurn, and of course scads of hipsters, like the one saying to the other in the hallway, "So maybe Coca-Cola is the father of all modern drug abuse." Yeah, and your tight retro polo shirt is abusing my eyes, dude.

So while I saw some great stuff that I liked a lot, Julia had the fantastickest time. She really liked seeing Karin's jewelry and the prints displayed by Karin's studio-mate, Keiko Yagishita, especially a piece which Julia called "Zoe" on account of the resemblance between the dog and Zoe on Sesame Street. (It's the fourth item in the "Dogs" section of Keiko's website.) For her, I think the day's artistic high point was a painting of a "laffing horsey," mostly because it was a good counterpoint to the "scary fishy" and because it gave her something to recall and discuss for the rest of the day. "What was your favorite adventure today?" "Laffing horsey! Neigh-ha-ha-ha-ha!" At a zillion decibels. I know it's loud when it makes my hearing aids cut out.

The people-watching was good, too. At one point, we passed by two punks in raggedy black clothes, safety pins, and high blue mohawks. Julia stopped cold and stared, even swiveling on her toes to watch them stalk down the hall. A few minutes later, she pointed at a woman with a head of artificially red curly hair and exclaimed, "Elmo!" It's amazing how fast you can hustle her out of sight when you need to.