After spending Saturday in Cary at Spring Daze, we jumped back in the car on Sunday morning to head to Asheville for the Big Love Fest.
With the festival name in mind, I must pause here to gush. Asheville is our favorite place ever. Seriously. I've been in love with it since high school and my adoration has only grown over time. It is the place I've always felt most at home. Wayne and I diligently searched for over a year for land in or around the city, but were not lucky enough to find anything that worked for us. We hope as we transition to Morganton (just down the mountain) we'll have the opportunity to spend more time enjoying the gorgeous city and all the amazing people who inhabit it.
Okay, back to business: Downtown Asheville is busy on a normal day. The Big Love Fest was timed to correspond with Just Economic's homebrew competition, so the place was literally flooded. People started walking around while vendors were still arriving. Then the food trucks pulled in...and the party officially started.
While we were unloading I was continuously distracted by the painter who was setting up directly across from us. Her work was amazing. So colorful! It just drew me in.
I kept wandering across to peek at what they were hanging. I got Wayne involved and we switched off for a while.
Her name is Deona Fish and her work is wonderful. I finally decided that we had to pick something before they all disappeared, so we purchased the painting at the very top of this shot.
It makes me thing of our land and the little house on the hill that we're {hopefully} building shortly. Wayne promises me the painting will soon make it onto the wall in the office where I can stare at it anytime I like.
The festival stayed busy enough that I didn't have too much time to wander around, but I did get a few shots of some of the amazing artists who set up camp for the afternoon.
I recognized Pennywishes from Etsy. I love her little signs....the sayings make me smile. Example: "Wherever you go, no matter the weather, always bring your own sunshine."
I also recognized this amazing pottery from Patty Bilbro. I imagine I must have seen it around the Asheville area.
Some more pottery from Terri Friday
Very cool peacock earrings...(unsure of the seller)
And adorable tin signs from Two Sisters.
I am drawn to plant-ish things. Our house is quite full. Naturally, I was fascinated by the Air Plants that Kambra was selling. She had a whole tree of sculptures made of air plants. I wanted to talk to her a bit, but she was crazy busy when I wandered over and I didn't want to interrupt. I'm kicking myself for not buying a pair of these wild earrings:
Another plant-ish find were the terrariums by Treesan Art Productions. They were little worlds all unto themselves (click the picture to view it larger. It's worth it....I promise). If I had another shelf available, one of these would have probably come home with me.
Of course, we also took a few minutes to eat some scrumptous food. I had some veggie Indian and Wayne had falafel. Yum on both accounts. The Lebanese food truck was by far the busiest thing there. So much so that we didn't even get to take a look at the menu! We did; however, sample the brownies and squares from the French Broad Chocolate Lounge. They come very highly recommended.
And, as seems to be the case at any festival, there was a certain degree of unexpected fun. The Asheville table tennis club (who knew?) was playing....
...and I'm pretty sure this guy was discussing detailed recycling options with Spiderman, but I wasn't close enough to find out for sure.
We had an amazing time. Thanks for having us Asheville....we hope to be back soon.