It’s not only springtime in Louisville, Kentucky, it’s also Derby time! This year is the 151st running of the largest attendance of any Thoroughbred horse race in the United States, the famous Kentucky Derby. And Louisville sponsors many events two to three weeks prior to the race known as the Run for the Roses. Celebrations and activities in a variety of ways! One of these is the Cherokee Park Art Festival which was held this past week end. Numerous booths are set up for artist to display and sell their work. So Saturday morning I set out with my darling Man, Alan, and my dear friend Lisa from Virginia. We met Alan’s daughter and granddaughter, Denise and Lili, at the festival and strolled all around to see the sights.

The booths were filled with paintings, yard art, clothing, jewelry, hats, photography, wood works, metal works, plants, candles, nuts, and cookies, to name a few. I met artists who were from Kentucky, Michigan, and Georgia. Cecilia, who creates gorgeous hand painted scarves is from Savannah, Georgia. She was delightful to talk with and taught me a little bit about how she creates her colorful scarves for her artistic business known as Blue Heron Silks.

Basically there are three ways she paints on the scarves. The scarves are white silk and she uses silk paints. The first technique is to draw on the scarf with a pencil the design she wants, then she follows the contours of her designs with something called “resist”. This allows her to paint on the material and the paint will stay in the boundaries of the pencil drawings. The second form of creating her art is placing the white scarf in a hot pot, what Cecilia calls a chili pot. Using certain chemicals combined with the slk paint she chooses, the heat creates a beautiful colorful scarf. The third form of creating her silk creations is placing the scarf in a small cooler, again using particular chemicals and the paint colors she chooses, only this time the ice helps create the design. As you can see from the photo above Cecilia makes gorgeous, artistic scarves to wear around your neck or to tie on your garden hat! This all worked out so well for me as I needed a few gifts for some special women.

My friend Lisa and I went back to the festival the following day, Sunday. It was a beautiful, warm spring day and I think there were more people there than the day before. The gathering area had an outdoor band playing, the Palo Verdes Band. These gentlemen were outstanding with their music, playing guitars, dulcimer, harmonica, and the drums. And guess who got up from the picnic table to dance? Me! I love to dance and my favorite place to dance is outside under the Tall Beings. The flower child in me can’t resist. It was quite wonderful. I visited with an old girlfriend and also made several new friends. What a fun weekend I had, filled with a few surprises.

On our walk back to Lisa’s car, The Victory Mobile, we stopped in an old house being renovated by a contractor. He said it was fine to just go in the house and walk around a bit. The house appeared to be very old, with the original hardwood flooring, you know, the wood strips maybe an inch and one half wide. And the ceilings were very tall. But the best thing of all to me was the old library off to the left from the front foyer. Books lined the back wall to the top of the twenty foot ceiling. It was a book lover’s and writer’s dream! One would need a ladder to reach all those books! Be still my heart!

Yes, Louisville’s got it going on this time of year. So much to see and do. If you live here I hope to see you at the Cherokee Park Art Festival next year. And if you don’t I hope you come and visit our city. You might want to get out there and view some very fine art, and dance with the rest of us. :O)

c   Love, Joan