Another Paint Job!

The 2008 Bellingham Chalk Art Festival was held this weekend and what started out with so much promise quickly fizzled as the rains came. The chalk art really never got off the ground, but Cornwall Street was still crowded with artists of all types, food vendors along with the Bite of Bellingham celebration and lots of home grown music. Bellinghamsters don't let a little liquid sunshine keep our webbed feet from getting out for a little fun.

We drove down in our little red Miata, top down in cloudy skies with sunshine making occasional appearances. Each artist had their own covered booth and we walked from artist to artist without seeing much we liked until we came upon Pham Quoc Hung. We were immediatley drawn to his work. The artist himself was there. He struggled with English but his humble pride in his work was apparent. His work was almost flying off the wall of his booth.

We walked back and forth between his acrylic pieces and the wood block prints he displayed. One piece we loved was sold out from under us, but we finally settled on an original acrylic (left) in bright hues of red, orange and browns, a real departure for us. The still life titled Tropical Fruit is about 2' X 3' and as yet has not got a home on one of our walls. We just love it!

The block print, right, was of two lovers nestled next to an ox with birds flitting about, a frequent theme in his work. The colors in thess photo are pretty close to the actual print.

We purchased our two new acquisitions which were fortunately, carefully covered in black plastic for as we drove home in our open Miata, the rain began to come down in buckets. By the time we pulled into our garage we were drenched. So we are spending a quiet afternoon preparing for a dinner party this evening and deciding where these beautiful new additions to our art collection should be displayed.