Talbot Street Art Fair Finds

For the past few years, I have wanted to go to the Talbot Street Art Fair.  It's a free art fair downtown Indianapolis that takes up 4-5 blocks & the surrounding area.  It seems like we normally have something else going on & we don't get to go.  This year it worked out for us to go to BOTH days of the art fair.  We had GORGEOUS weather this weekend.  It was perfect for browsing around outside.

I love art fairs.  I love looking at the results of someone else's creative processes.  There is normally a ton of stuff I'd love to have on my walls (almost always above my price range).  Typically there is also a lot of stuff that I find hideous, but I can still respect the time & effort that went into making the pieces.  These are the things we walked away with this weekend...

I have wanted an olive oil bottle for awhile.  I cook with olive oil almost everyday, so the bottle never seems to make it back in the cabinet after meal prep.  Since you aren't supposed to let olive oil be exposed to excess air & light, that's poses an additional problem on top of the eyesore labeled bottle sitting on my counter 24-7. I've looked for ceramic olive oil bottles before & just haven't found one that I like.  That problem was fixed this weekend...

The colors are a little more muted than
they appear in this photo...

I'd like to tell you who the potter was for it...but his flyer apparently didn't make it into the bag with the bottle.  I love this bottle.  The way it was squeezed before being fired causes it to fit perfectly in my hand, & also has a good amount of "grippiness" to it because of the dents.  The green color on top is a perfect muted shade of our accent green color from our kitchen, & the muted yellow/beige color on the bottom coordinates with our tiled backsplash.


There was also this great vendor called Of Nature at the art fair.  This guy takes natural elements like flowers, leaves, seed pods, etc. and copper plates them, & turns them into earrings, pendants, brooches, etc.  Perhaps it is my inner nature lover & biology nerd...but I thought these were incredibly fun.  I ended up getting two pendants.  I can't wait to get them mounted on cords & wear them.

My 2 pendants. A daisy & an orchid.  Perfectly preserved
in copper.

Our final purchase is what necessitated going back to Talbot St for the 2nd day of the art fair.  There was a vendor from Louisiana who takes weathered wood, makes fun planters, planting tables & other outdoor patio elements out of the wood, & then paints them in bright colors & adds distressing & patina elements to the paint. I'd tell you his name, but he didn't have it posted.  I fell in love with one of the bright green ladder planters.  I had been trying to think of a fun way to switch up how I am growing my herb garden, instead of the boring planters I've been using the past 4 years. We didn't end up getting it yesterday since we were rushing to get to dinner plans with my coworkers...but after discussing it last night, we thought it was worth the trip back downtown today to get the planter.  I would have loved one of the planting tables that matched...but that wouldn't have been practical (nor would it have fit in Jason's car :-P).

My fun new planter...with the boring white one
behind it.  I did re-purpose the white planter into
another basil planter.  You can never have
 too much basil... :-)

I found some bamboo fiber "plastic" planters at Menard's that fit perfectly.  The end result is slightly Mardi Gra'ish...but I love it.  It's a fun bright spot on our very brown patio.  I can't wait to see how it ages over time...

My new herb corner of the patio. I think it
turned out pretty cute...

Yay for art fairs!  Hopefully we will be able to get to a few more this summer & fall...including Penrod.  It NEVER works out for us to go.  It seems like we always have 9 million things going on that weekend in September each year.