One of my favorite things about going to the county fair are the art exhibits. The talent and skill to be found in the junior's hall always amazes me. Especially the photographs this year, so many were just spectacular. One in particular was of birds in flight right in front of a cresting wave, so all you saw was the birds and the water. It reminded me of something I had been thinking of earlier, the power that exists in the wind and in the movement of water; the photograph captured that very well. There were also some truly breath-taking landscape photographs, some many managed to make you feel like you were in these expansive places. I especially loved the ones taken against the sunset. But what I think I most enjoy is the freedom of expression, drawings of anime characters right beside expressive, soul-touching paintings. You have such innocent things mixed in with powerful imagery, many of which show a wonderful grasp of technique.

Paintings, drawings, poems, photographs, and not always that straightforward. There were paintings with pieces of other objects glued onto them for some very interesting effects. The foods section had some really neat cakes, truely professional looking, and very imaginative. The lego exhibits were interesting too.

There was also a giant leggo soccer stadium in the adult's fine arts hall. I loved the quilts in the home arts hall, one especially had such a subtlety of pattern. There were so many differnt kinds of things, jams, knitted items, some beautiful garments, masks, dolls, some things that aren't exactly sculpture because they were put together with already existing things, like bones or beads, but I really don't know what else to call it.

The fine arts hall was mostly paintings and photographs, and again so many were just amazing. There were also many spectacular landscapes here, as well as, for some reason, a noteable number of spider closeups. There were some great portraits, including one of Batman. In particular some of the paintings of animals caught my eye, the captured a sense of aliveness.

But what really took the cake, and there were also cakes exhibited in the home arts hall, was a huge sculpture of San Francisco done in toothpicks. It wasn't a literal representation, but this great airy thing with the Trans-America Pyramid building, a trolley, sailboat, houses, waves, and so many other things I can't remember them all, on this spiral path that took you around the sculpure something like ten times. It was beautiful, and apperently took the artist four years to build.

There was much more, but this is all I could remember right now. i love walking around and trying to take it all in, even knowing I won't remember all the wonderful things I saw.