The Fourth of July weekend is also the weekend when the Cherry Creek Arts Festival is held. This event turns several blocks of Cherry Creek (a very ritzy shopping area in the southeast of Denver) into a big outdoor art show.
There’s a lot of expensive art (in fact, it’s all expensive), some of which is quite good, some of which is — well, “there’s no accounting for tastes,” mine or anyone else’s, and ’nuff said.
There are also lots of food and drink kiosks (also expensive), many of which are hosted by local restaurants.
We try to get down there each year, and make it about 2/3 of the time. Usually, it’s just to look around — like I said, it’s all pretty expensive.
Usually, as well, it’s beastly hot — just like a RennFest, but with lots of asphalt and cement to kick the heat back up at you. This year we lucked out, since just as we piled into the van, a huge thunderstorm ripped through Denver, dumping a lot of rain which washed the heat right out of the air, and kept things overcast the rest of the afternoon.
So, we wandered about, oohing, aahing, and trying to herd Kitten through the maze of legs (and away from the art glass).
I knew, when I saw Margie go into the booth, that we were in trouble. Because I liked the stuff there, and I knew she would, too. And she did.
We narrowed it down to three pieces we both liked and were not going to impoverish us too badly, then we went off to have something to eat.
And then we came back and walked away with a framed collograph by Diana Stetson of some colorful peonies, with a Ryokan Zen haiku at the bottom:
Wild Peonies now at their peak in glorious full bloom — too precious to pick, too precious not to.
And it’s hanging three feet from me on our breakfast room, and the lousy JPEG of it here doesn’t do it justice by any means. Its colors are so intense, it dominates the wall despite being only 16×20.
My wife has good taste. And I say that in as non-self-serving a way as possible.
And I don’t even like peonies. But I like this.