TIMES-REPUBLICAN
With temperatures reaching levels that could have cooked an egg on sidewalk, the 2012 Linn Creek Arts Festival took place on Sunday outside the Fisher Community Center.
Despite the heat and the lack of a breeze, patrons from all over the state came to see the variety of artworks on sale by artists who also hail from various cities. As two stages echoed upbeat songs throughout the crowd, spectators could be heard exclaiming their love for what they found at their favorite booths.
Article Photos
T-R PHOTO BY LEVI CASTLE
Ty Smedes proudly holds his newly-published book written and photographed entirely by himself, documenting 15 years of following the bald eagle.
Ty Smedes, a professional author and photographer of nature, had a booth at the west end of the festival under a canopy of trees that alleviated at least a few degrees of the summer's heat. Showing off his 15-years-in-the-making, newly-published bald eagle book this year, Smedes said that this is his second year at the festival.
"Meeting old friends and sharing our work with each other after all this time is reason enough to come to this wonderful event. The food is outstanding, too," Smedes said.
And food, there certainly was. With catering companies like Smokin' G's BBQ and authentic Hispanic food offered by local vendors, a variety of popular, home-cooked meals were made available to festival-goers. If a full-fledged meal wasn't an attendee's fancy, plenty of snacks like mini-donuts and homemade ice cream were available as well. With water bottles in hand and cash in their pockets, shoppers had all they needed to start perusing the numerous booths and find exactly what they were looking for.
In addition to selling hand-made art, the festival had other events like kite-flying, art judging, numerous raffle contests which gave away anything from free art pieces to $75 of "festival bucks" to spend.
The festival's co-chairs are Nichole Christensen and PatrickStansberry, with Alliance member Mary Giese also serving on the board among the many other helpful people who made this year's event such a hit.
Kirk Niehouse, a Marshalltown ceramic artist that has won multiple awards throughout his decades of artistry, said this is probably his 20th time at the festival.
"I love what so many other people love about this; seeing other people is such a gratifying and worthy reason for being in these shows," said Niehouse. "The board did such a fantastic job with this year's show, and it just keeps getting better and better."
As the heat slowly recessed, the festival came to a close at 4 p.m. With shopping bags and bellies full of the day's culture, the hundreds of festival-goers went home with a little more knowledge about the arts.