Kassidy Powell- arts fest

The artist that I found was named Leigh Hannan and she sold these neat things called "skellies." I've always been super interested in el dia de los muertos (Day of the Dead) and these really reminded me of that holiday. When I asked her about why she made them, she said that her dad had worked in El Paso, Texas for a period of time and she had grown up being surrounded by certain Latino and Hispanic cultures and events. It was really neat talking to her about her work and I found that not only does she create these sculptures, but she also does little graphic designs. She had some of her hand painted graphics on a table within her tent, but she said that this show frowns upon the digital fillings of graphics and that's how she typically makes her work. Hannan was slightly curt with me due to the heat and being hungry and I felt bad drilling her for answers in a sense, but I also was the most intrigued by her artwork. She said she created each of the skellies using air dry clay and then sanding it until she gets her desired look. As for how she got each of the different ideas, she simply said about the Mexican holiday, but the idea seemed like something from this children's movie I saw, COCO, which was based in Mexico and about a little boy who gets trapped between the land of the living and the land of the dead. Hannan was pretty cool about answering my questions and when I asked how she got into art she alluded to having originally done the graphics for napkins and holiday themed items and then she mentioned that she got frustrated because she couldn't do her own thing and so she gradually switched to freelance. She gave me a piece of advice at the end of our conversation, however, saying that art was a hardwork and to think very, very long if I'm interested in going into it. I'm not, but it made me wonder how other people get into art if it is such a hard occupation. Even walking through the Arts Fest, I wondered how people could be selling their photographs of trees for $850 when they were something that looked to be shot on an iPhone. 

Overall, I appreciated the time spent at the Arts Fest and the time Hannan took talking to me about her work. It was incredibly fulfilling.