Favorite fair find: E Douglas Wunder titanium dragonfly pin.

I’m really looking forward to the Bellevue Arts Fair (or whatever new name they’ve dreamed up this year), which I’ve gone to almost every year for the past 5 years. It’s usually a hot and airless weekend, but since quite a lot of the fair fits into the parking garage, I can stay out of heatstroke unless I decide to dart across the street to do the other half of the fair.

Every year it seems the same old vendors get trotted out. During the first year I went, everything was new and different, and I went around amazed by what I saw, in that sort of “I can’t believe they call this art” sort of way. It took about 4 hours of hard tromping and then we were too tired to cross the road to the other side of the fair. Last year it was old hat, and I did the fair at a breakneck pace, “saw that already,… we decided that was crap,… too overpriced,… wait up, I don’t remember this guy…” I saw the majority of the fair in under two hours, and I have to say, it was totally not worth crossing the road.

This year I’m planning to cross the road in the other direction and see if I can puzzle out why Bellevue is holding several (competing?) different art fairs in the same area. So after doing a fast jog through the main part of the main arts fair, I’ll head down to the 6th St Arts and Crafts fair and something laughably entitled “the Taste of Bellevue” (which I tend to scoff at since I know of only 3 good restaurants in downtown Bellevue, but I’ll bitch about that some other time) and check that out.

If you go: Take advantage of the free shuttles running at 15-minute intervals. Please. You can thank me later.

Best bet for first-timers: Don’t be shy. You’re out on a beautiful summer day. It’s hot but you’ve got a cool drink in your hand, and your feet are built to mosey. Take the opportunity to chat with the artists, most of whom man their own store. If you don’t see anything you like, ask if they can do up a custom piece for you. Take a business card if you can’t afford anything right then. Haggle a little — see if they’ll give you a discount for buying 2 or 3 pieces, or heck, just for having a nice smile.