The Strathern Art Walk
Edmonton has a lot of monikers and one of them is “Festival City”.
Although many of our festivals had to be cancelled this last couple of years due to the pandemic, quite a few still continued on if maybe online or of a smaller scale.
We recently attended the first of a two day art show/sale called the “Strathern Art Walk”. Terry and I participated in this one rainy day a few years ago. It was particularly difficult too as I was in a wheelchair due to a recent foot/ankle operation so Terry had to do most of the heavy lifting himself.
And there is A LOT of heavy lifting. We had to set up racks for the art, a tent to cover it all, bring a table, our chairs …and of course…ALL the art! Luckily, that day our friends, Cathy and David Harvey helped Terry.
Strathern sits atop a cliff overlooking the river valley and at points gives one a good view of Edmonton’s downtown.
The festival offers live music , food trucks, port 0’ potties, and over 100 artisans in tents snaking around in a circular form.
Mostly everyone in attendance wore masks in this precarious ‘Delta Variant” time and I noticed it was an all ages crowd.
Some folks grabbed popcorn and sat near a musician , others, like ourselves, walked slowly around , stopping when a particular style of art caught our eyes.
Being artists ourselves who already have an extensive collection of art, we usually look for a style that we don’t do when we create a painting.
We saw every kind of painting from oil to alcohol ink, from realistic to highly abstract. There were jewelry artisans , people who brought their knitting, hand sewn clothing, drawings, cards, and SO much more.
After strolling around the whole event we decided to purchase a wee abstract painting on board. Beautiful!
I love events like this that show off the many talented artisans in our city and bring people together (although I am still very careful to social distance) and outdoors.
I hope the artists did well on their second day. It just poured with rain!
Support local! And if you have the chance, support a local artist. They would really appreciate the affirmation of their talent and the money in their wallet in these tough times.