Fishwithoutbicycle, Patron Of The Arts

It’s been a soggy Sunday in New York today so I’ve been holed up at home cleaning my apartment and reading up on my upcoming trip to Iceland and trying to think about what I need to pack, although I’m struggling to get my head around packing for 40F degree temperatures when it’s a humid 68F outside.

Yesterday the weather was much nicer, a perfect sunny, crisp autumn day in fact, a good day for Melissa and I to check out the 13^th Annual Art Under The Bridge Festival in DUMBO, Brooklyn this weekend. I love this festival, it's one of my favorite events in New York and the small neighborhood of DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) is always chocka with good looking people checking out the art.

The festival is produced by the DUMBO Arts Center and there's always all sorts of interesting sights to see, like these intriguing individuals clad head to toe in wool suits.

I bet those outfits were more than a bit itchy don't you? I'm not sure who was the brainchild behind this, but the woolly people were stationed all over the festival: by the subway station, at the gates of Brooklyn Bridge Park and outside the location of festival producer, DUMBO Arts Center. I found them quite creepy, like something out of Dr. Who!!

This installation is by Gav Barbey and was an interactive installation as visitors were encouraged to help the artist lay out 1000 pigmented ice blocks.

I'm not entirely sure what the intention behind this piece was, nor do I know who the artist was as I wasn't able to identify it in the festival guide.

Nor this...

These people marched around blowing whistles and waving their goldfish placards around and perhaps chanting too, I don't quite recall. The whistle blowing grated on me after a few minutes as I was still suffering with the remnants of my cold and was enjoying all the fun of a low grade sinus headache.

In addition to the street happenings a lot of artists open their studios for visitors to tour and I took the opportunity to visit the studio of my favorite New York artists, Jen Ferguson to buy a couple of prints for my parents who've been looking for some New York inspired art like this watercolor of the Brooklyn Bridge.

We also checked out Justin Davis' studio after a postcard of his work caught our eye in the building elevator. His work is beautiful and, as Melissa observed, has an Edward Hopper like quality. Unfortunately at $3000 a pop I couldn't quite drum up the necessaries to buy something, but maybe if I have a lottery win...

The one below reminded me of a really cool photographic art piece Catweazle produced of a warehouse in Charlotte, NC. Ahhh Catweazle, he would have loved the Art Festival.

Last but not least we came across a guy on the street selling whimsical New York inspired watercolors by another local artist, the Williamsburg based Ilia Pasymansky, which I thought were very sweet. Not exactly what my parents were looking for, but I liked them and ended up buying a couple of originals from his Etsy store when I got home. That's me, patron of the arts ;-)