Artisphere 2012 part 1 Jullie and Kent

I made it out today, after a few weeks of having to take it easy and read or spend time with my granddaughter due to flare ups in my arthritis and what a great day it was.  I met Mark downtown (Greenville, SC) for the Farmer's Flea Market where we enjoyed West End Coffee, homemade apple coconut bars and more, and strolled through the booths salivating over the displays of gorgeous vegetables and fruit and tasting goat cheese, salsas, breads and more.  I could have filled my bag with goodies, but didn't want to carry much since our next stop was only a few steps away to the massive annual Artisphere festival.  Artists, bookmakers, potters, ironmongers, printers, photographers, fiber artists, jewelers and more were on display and this was the best festival ever since so many local artists had booths or were doing Art in Action along the Main St. Bridge, including Ryan Calloway from Creative Ironworks along with glass blowers, and my absolute favorite part a print shop from Kansas!  It was great to see Julie Shakbie Hughes (photo by Patrick Cox), a nationally known impressionist artist and good friend who has a studio in the Pendleton Street Arts District right down the street in the West End, from where I lived in my art studio at the Village Studios and Gallery - Boy do I miss those days!  I'm lucky enough to own one of Julie's incredible figure drawings and this time she had many of her cyclist paintings on display, since this is a cyclists town. Kent Ambler was also there with his woodblock prints which are such a feature of the Greenville art scene.  He had a great book on display on how he completes each woodcut then creates the prints but he only has one copy!!  I talked to him about the company which produces art books the way Amazon's Create a Space produces novels and non fiction books, so hopefully he'll look into it because I'd love a copy of this stunning informative book.