It’s almost a month since summer vacation started and I dint post a single blog? Wow that’s so not like me! When I pondered why I hadn’t done so.. I figured out two reasons… With a forty-hour summer job and my passions to catch up with (like reading, painting and watching movies), which I never dared to do during the semester, summer seemed as busy as the semester time, in fact a lot busier. The second reason was that I really dint get any kind of inspiration to blog about something, which is important…. I would never want to blog just for the sake of periodicity.
My inspiration set in on one blessed Saturday morning with the scorching sun overhead, white tents arranged neatly one after the other, stretched across nearly 3 long streets of downtown Buffalo, with loads of people in these streets like I have never seen before that it hurt my eye a little in surprise. “The Allentown Art Festival”
As I walked towards the crowd I thought would an art festival in a place like Buffalo be any good? My lifetime’s wish is to visit almost all the popular museums in the world, yet there was this peculiar excitement in me, more like I was going to visit “The Louvre” at Paris, inspite of the fact that what I was seeing in front of me was sweating artists standing proudly in front of their white canvas tents rather than tall walls of architectural value and tour guides.
Large museums would have artwork neatly spaced so that an individual can pay special attention to each one of their precious pieces, adored on massive walls with special display lights. But out here the artists had to scramble to make space for all their proud creations in the available 10 x 10 x 10 feet (approximately) stall space securely tied on to the canvas cloth which just managed to bear all the weight. You start looking at one piece of work when the other catches your eye that you turn to the other before you fully appreciate the previous and so on. Even as I started falling in love with one piece of art I would be forced to move on to the other because the rate of incoming people was much larger than the time required for me to completely go head over heals on one.
The Niagara falls with the full impact of its powerful nature in oil medium on canvas, leaf imprints burnt over clay pots with the beauty of its knitted veins so distinct, colors of precious/semi precious stones on intricately hand crafted jewelry that would make any female with a good eye sight go bonkers. Glass, far from plain and yet transparent, letting you see through it with enthused amazement, in so many different forms. Small tanks, helicopters, jeeps made out of used cola tins and copper wire and useless printed circuit boards turning into funny little robot sculptures speaks out about how beautiful junk can turn out to be. With just a black pen as tool and paper as base the architectural beauty of the University at Buffalo and surrounding campuses depicted with intricacy. Short captivating instances of life kept alive for eternity as large framed photographs and a loooooooooooooooooooot more.
It was amazing how the individuality of each artist was so obvious like he had his signature all over his stall. Its breath taking as to how creative a human’s brain can get, inspirations derived from all facets of life. My eye was aching with the plentitude of beautiful art around me it was just a whole lot for me to take at one instant. But this is just like a morsel out of a dinner plate and i feel full already... looks like my life time is not enough to devour them all before I can even think of the dessert.
