At the Grant County Fair, there’s a Commercial Building where fairgoers can find things for sale, and there’s an Arts and Crafts building where people can find paintings, drawings and other visual art. Up at the north end of Yarbro Avenue there’s also a building that’s kind of a hybrid, where the Desert Artists have their works out for display and – hopefully, anyway – sale.
“We sold a lot yesterday,” said artist Lenny Harm on Wednesday. “There’s about 12 paintings gone off the wall.”
The Desert Artists is a group of local artists who work in all kinds of media. They’re an informal group; they meet once a week to paint and chat. All skill levels are welcome, but at a show like the one at the fair, it’s clear that some of the artists are quite accomplished.
Leanne Hicks, who serves as superintendent for the Desert Artists building, specializes in miniatures painted on bird feathers. All but one of her pieces had sold, a painting of a cougar that won fourth place overall.
Besides the regular judging, the Desert Artists held a People’s Choice judging Tuesday, the opening day of the fair, Hickman said.
“We were attacking everybody who was coming in,” she said. “(We said) ‘Look at all the paintings closely and pick out your number one painting, pick out that number and write it down on the slip and put it in the box.’”
The Grand Champion and People’s Choice ribbons both went to one of Harm’s pieces, a painting of a blue heron in a wetland surrounded by orange flowers that was titled “Content.” It was priced at $550.
“I painted it from a photo, but I see blue herons all the time,” Harm said, adding that she lives in the MarDon area, where they’re a common sight.
The Desert Artists have been around for 33 years, according to a previous Columbia Basin Herald interview. They had some issues with the fair’s management about 10 years ago and stopped coming, Hickman said, but those issues have been resolved.
“I reopened it,” she said. “It’s been kind of a struggle to get it going, but we’re here.”
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