OCEANSIDE — The 18th annual Days of Art festival brought together more than 100 artists and filled the streets around the Civil Center with visual and performing arts on April 17 and April 18.
“It’s a juried fine arts display, that makes us distinct from others art festivals,” Genevieve Wunder, Oceanside Cultural Arts Foundation treasurer, said.
Artists displayed photography, paintings, videos, mixed media art, sculptures, woodcarvings and blown glass. There were also performances on two stages.
“It’s a good way to have people start collecting art,” Anita Romaine, an Oceanside Cultural Arts Foundation board member, said.
New to the festival this year were displays of senior art and military art.
The variety of fine art gave festival-goers plenty to look at.
Sculptor Lynn Forbes showed cast bronze sculptures and gave sculpting demonstrations.
Forbes took a slab of clay and quickly turned it into the face of a volunteer model.
“It’s essentially subtractive,” Forbes said, describing the process of sculpting clay. “You start with the major forms and work into details. Because it is clay you can add things on.”
“It’s all figurative sculptures,” Forbes said, summing up her body of work.
Forbes works from live models to sculpt and later casts her finished sculptures in bronze. Her focus is on the human face.
Sculpting is a 360-degree art form. “Every part has a relationship to every other part,” Forbes said.
Artist Marcus Thesing displayed a variety of unique handblown glass.
Some of the more complex shapes take two people to control the glass as it is shaped with donut hole-sized openings through the middle and twisted tentacles on top.
“All colors are metal oxide,” Thesing said, describing his work. “Some have a sandblast finish.”
Thesing worked as an apprentice for eight years before he created his own designs, which he has made for 16 years. “The first time I felt molten slate, I was hooked,” Thesing said.
In addition to the artwork on display, a festival favorite for many was the hands-on children’s art area. Kids and parents created a 4-foot mixed media heart-shaped collage and painted rocks with kid-safe nontoxic paints. “It’s neat what they see,” mixed media artist Julie Hiskett said. “There’s no wrong way.”
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