The 2025 Cherry Creek Arts Festival

I went to Denver's Cherry Creek Arts Festival yesterday afternoon, which is arguably one of the best art shows in the country. The festival features 260 artists from around the country, chosen from 2,085 applicants. As usual, it was hot and sunny, but there was nonetheless a large crowd perusing the artwork. I checked the prices on a few of the items that I liked, but most of them were in the five-to-fifteen-thousand-dollar range, which sadly is just a little bit out of my price range. I suppose I could have tried to haggle with them and bring it down to a more reasonable price, like 50 bucks, but I forgot to bring my checkbook along, and so decided to just move on.

I spent most of my time looking at the photography. There are 21 photographers displaying their work this year, and three of them, all from the Chicago area, were at the Cherry Creek Arts Festival last year, including Igor Menaker, whose work can be seen in the photograph on the right. I think this guy is very talented. He wound up in Chicago working in corporate IT management before chucking it all and becoming a photographer, and has spent the last 14 years traveling, photographing, and selling his work at art festivals all over the country. In other words, a dream job. Talk about a success story!

Another photographer that I like and who was also at last year's festival is James Cole, from Plainfield, Illinois, just to the southwest of Chicago. He has a number of photographs from Cuba on display, such as the woman smoking a cigar in the photograph on the left. In addition to taking photos and selling them at art fairs, Cole also takes people on photography expeditions throughout the world, which sounds like it would be great fun, although I suspect you might have to actually pay money to go along, which lets me out. Another photographer I like who is at the festival this year and was there last year too is Clifton Henri. I remember that he also displayed a lot of photographs from Cuba last year, although not so many this time. And from his address in Chicago, I see that he has his studio in Beverly, located on the South Side just to the west of the Brainerd neighborhood, where I grew up. A fellow Southsider! Since we have that connection, perhaps I could go on one of those photography expeditions with him for free. I'll have to send him an e-mail about that. In any case, the Cherry Creek Arts Festival continues both today and tomorrow. I strongly recommend that you go. It is worth it, despite the heat.