County Fair

Some Artist Trading Cards that are going to the
Denver County Fair this weekend.
Mixed media ATCs by Phillip Hoyle

I recall going to the Clay County Fair at the end of the summer in Clay Center, KS a place with 4H displays, animals from surrounding farms and ranches, food judging, live music, rides to make my stomach feel queezy, (maybe because I had just eaten too much BBQ beef made by the Lions Club), and lots of people wandering the grounds. It also seemed to announce the impending start of school at CCCHS. Some fifty years ago I tramped through the county fairgrounds and buildings looking at homemade pies and home-canned garden produce, ducks and chickens, cows and horses. It was a rather celebrative affair in that little town where I attended high school.

After I left there, I never expected to participate in a county fair again. When many years later I moved to Denver, I went with friends to something similar, the National Western Stock Show. Being there stirred up memories of childhood trips to the American Royal Horse Show in Kansas City. Now there is a Denver County Fair in its fourth or fifth year held in the exhibition hall out at the the National Western Stock Show grounds. 

Anyway I have entered three sheets of Artist Trading Cards: two pages of wildflowers and one page of drums. (I posted some of the drums on this blog.) Also I have a monoprint with a collaged map with a grizzly bear printed on it. I'd show you that, but I never did take a photo of it! Guess you can visit the fair to see it. Look in the Mixed Media section of the Art Gallery. 

I am not only attending, I'm rather involved in the fair this year. On Thursday I'll help set up an Artist Trading Card booth where you can stop by and make cards, on Friday when the fair begins I'll be visiting it with some friends, and on Sunday I'll return to help with the booth, help pack things up, and retrieve my artwork. Lots of activity. Lots of fun.

Hope your summer is full of lots of fun and at least some art.

Denver, 2015