Washington Square Art Fair

I love to make a personal connection with someone when I travel, and I was able to do that in New York when I attended the Washington Square Art Fair this weekend. The outdoor display of art extended ten blocks along University Place, and the quality of the art and the fine craft was exceptional. This is the 83rd year of the fair, which runs for two weekends in the spring and again in the fall.

There was always a crowd gathered around this table, above, with viewers fascinated by the assemblages made of found items.

While there were many good painters at the fair, I was especially taken with the work by Linda Adato. Linda kindly allowed me to take a photo of her work, but the glass caught a little glare from the sunlight. I chatted with Linda about the current show of watercolors by John Singer Sargent at the Brooklyn Museum, and about her work. Like me, Linda favours cityscapes and often works in a subdued palette. She is a printmaker, and she explained that the metal plates that she works with have to be immersed in acid. Working with large plates is awkward, so if she wants to make a larger image, she breaks the image down into smaller plates. She then prints them side by side on a single piece of heavy paper. Tobie Steinhouse is a Montreal printmaker who has done the same thing for many years, especially with her larger prints.

I liked the effect: you get the whole image but you also have each component framed as a smaller composition in itself. I could do something like this with my cityscapes too.

Please visit Linda's website to see more of her beautiful work.