Who and What to look for

Of especial note are our more serious local painters.  On the day these photos were taken (June 2 (2007)) we were fortunate to find three of the Rogue Valley's absolute best and brightest: Curtis Otto and James Peace.  These are the guys to watch and listen to if you ever want to understand what art and painting are really about—whose work you ought to buy, collect and hoard if you want your children and grandchildren to bless you for your discriminating eye and wise investment strategy.

I, John Granacki, was also there on this particular Saturday, to photographically capture the essence of this art & craft venue for presentation on this very webpage, and since I was planning to be there anyhow, I figured I might as well bring some of my paintings too! After all, I too am "some kind of artist," though obviously I recognize myself as being unworthy of inclusion in the same paragraph as those featured above.  Still, I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of my work would make your heirs proud, and it's priced very reasonably! Click here to enter my personal online gallery of Art you can live with.

Kurt Mottram and Del Hearn were also there—Kurt with prints from his series of pen & ink musician portraits, along with a sampling of his recent oil paintings.  Del, who rents a space among the crafter booths is not exactly a "fine artist" per se, but a regionally acclaimed illustrative type—not really a painter, but one who essentially draws with paint.  Art scholars and gallery directors may scoff his attempts at near-photographic realism but I kind of like his stuff.  I think of it as the visual equivalent of poetry that rhymes.  Anyhow, this sort of work has landed him more than a few paying gigs (including a few phone book covers) and he seems to be doing well.  But then again, so does Thomas Kinkade, so what does that tell you?  My thought is that if your tastes happen to parallel those of the critics and scholars, then so much the better, but first and foremost you should buy what you like because you're the one who has to live with it.  Again, here's that link: Art you can live with (well, if you're sufficiently weird...)

Anyhow, sometime in the pre-breakfast hours, every Saturday from April through October, the crafters begin settting up their booths, typically with canopies, in the closed-off section of Fifth Street abuting the Growers' Market, between 'E' and 'F' streets.  The artists set their work up along the east sidewalk, against the wall in the cool morning shadows.