Sip and stroll at Carefree Fine Art and Wine Festival
An art festival isn’t defined just by the works displayed in tents. The atmosphere around a show helps to create a distinct experience. In Carefree, art, music, wine and nearby shops and restaurants all add to a show’s ambiance.
You can see for yourself when Thunderbird Artists hosts the Carefree Fine Art and Wine Festival March 16-18.
Each year, the family-owned company puts on fall, winter and spring shows in Carefree, all of which have been running for more than 20 years. It will close its season at the end of March with an art show in Fountain Hills.
The shows take place at Ho Hum and Easy streets, an area filled with shops, restaurants and outdoor cafes.
Artwork and wine tasting
This weekend's show will spotlight artists working in metal, glass, wood, painting, sculpture, charcoal or pastel drawings, jewelry and photography.
The artists come from across the country, and many travel to art shows around the Southwest during the winter months.
Festival goers can sample domestic and international wines, microbrews and flavored rums as they walk among the exhibits.
“The one thing that really sets us apart from other events is the fact that people can stroll the entire festival with their wine. It’s not confined to just a wine garden, and people tend to spend more time there,” said Denise Dale Colter, vice president of Thunderbird Artists.
Guests receive souvenir wine glasses and six tasting tickets for $10, and additional tickets are available for purchase.
On all three days of the show, Afterglow, a Phoenix band, will play a mixture of jazz and funk music.
Diversity of artistic viewpoints
There will be about 150 juried artists at the show. Colter said each of the Carefree festivals has a slightly different tone because of the artists who participate.
“Sure, they may see a few of the same artists, but there’s so many new and different artists at each event,” Colter said.
Many of the show’s artists have diverse art backgrounds.
Featured artists AkZhana Abdalieva and Maxim Maximov, originally from Russia and now living in California, work together to create Expressionist oil paintings with vibrant female subjects.
Sculptor Al Glann worked in graphic design and taught art at the college level before starting to make animal-inspired metal sculptures with a 3D gestural drawing/sumi-e brush painting feel.
Sometimes he adds red, blue and black patinas to his metal pieces to evoke the vivid colors in nature.
Based in Tucson, Glann tries to convey the spirit of a raven, steer, moose, buffalo or horse in his work.
“Part of what my philosophy is with the horses is capturing that energy,” Glann said.
To better understand the creatures’ personalities and body movements, Glann watches them and looks at thousands of images.
“I want to catch that one pose that I feel defines that animal. Once I find the pose, now I need to look at different angles of it because I’m looking at the anatomy. If this foot’s doing this, what is the back foot doing?” Glann said.
Art from bottle caps
Dakota Pratt, a pop artist from California, attaches bottle caps onto carved wood to create his style of furniture and functional sculptures.
Pratt said the most time-consuming part of the process is flattening the bottle caps.
“I’m still hammering each one individually, 14 hits per cap, to get it as flat as I need it,” Pratt said.
Pratt often draws inspiration from animals, skulls, hearts and fruit. Recently, Pratt has been developing pieces, such as an apple core with a bite taken out, with more of the wood underneath exposed.
Growing up, Pratt helped his parents design and build willow furniture.
“I took their traditional willow bent-twig furniture and I gave it a little flair. My dad would say, ‘Oh, you can’t do that,’ and I would say, ‘Why not?’ We were teaching teach other as we went,” Pratt said.
About 14 years ago, Pratt began adding bottle caps to his work after using them as accents on furniture pieces.
“My main idea was to make my carved wood looked like carved metal,” Pratt said.
Carefree Fine Art and Wine Festival
When: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday-Sunday, March 16-18.
Where: 101 Easy St., Carefree.
Admission: $3 for age 18 and older, $10 for wine tasting, $1 for additional tasting tickets.
Details: thunderbirdartists.com.
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