doodledee

The Edina Art Fair took over the 50th and France area last weekend. This year they shut down 50th for a block or two, turning it into a pedestrian mall type deal. I thought it worked out pretty well.

The last several years have been hard on the fair because of extra, extra crappy weather that drove both crowds and vendors away. Apparently it just isn't as much fun to look at pointillism prints of the Chicago skyline when you're getting rained on. Who knew?

This year, however, the weather was great. And the crowds were huge. And the art was exciting in some cases, banal in others, and the rest... well, the rest was either homemade soap or kettle corn.

Libby and I walked down early on Saturday morning. In a scene out of some long lost Twilight Zone episode, literally 80% of the people - us included - were carrying around $3 cups of coffee. By 11 am, many garbage cans were full to the top with starbucks and caribou cups. Oddly, I didn't see one littering the ground. Welcome to Edina.

On Sunday, I went back down and checked out the scene, this time with Jeannine. Near the end, I picked up neat watercolor that I had been hemming and hawing over. It's a print of pea pod that's open, showing the peas inside. I like it a lot. Not bad for $25.

I managed to resist the good luck monkeys. Only $3 for eternal monkey luck?! Sounds too good to be true - better move on.

I also got a kick out of the some of the foodstuffs available. First I had trouble figuring out the menu at the cheese curd booth. (What are my choices again?) Then I had trouble figuring out why the people selling kettle corn were dressed like amish folk. Is kettle corn really that big in the amish community? Who knew?

All in all, a pretty mint fair this year.