By Adam Pulchinski

Marketing Coordinator Austin Area Commission For the Arts

The countdown has begun.

Not that it was ever not going on. As are a lot of folks involved with the arts community in Austin, I’m of course talking about the fifth annual ArtWorks Festival. It’s less than 40 days away.  Just over a month. Mere weeks, even.

I can tell you, though, there is never not a time  that someone is working on bringing the next festival to fruition.  It’s just getting thicker and thicker until we reach that Aug. 27 and 28 deadline.

One really great thing about what I get to do with the AACA is to promote all that the ArtWorks Festival has to offer.  I get to see just a tiny sample of the work and wares people will be bringing from all across the country for the public to appreciate and purchase.

The week of July 6 we started highlighting a different visual artist every week day on our Facebook page to build some awareness and anticipation.  Last week I decided was Sculpture Week.

Sculpture is just a tiny slice of the artist pie, with flavors including painting, mixed media, textiles, wood, and more. One of the nicest things about art is the variety of medium and the amount of interpretation in each one.  But another side to this work is just that — it’s work.  Posting the images of a painting or a sculpture on social media, I can’t help but stop and marvel at the craftsmanship of what has been done.

Let’s take Sculpture Week as an example.  When we talk about art there’s probably a preconceived notion of what certain things mean. But when I looked at the images for the sculpture artists, not one was like another except for the fact that it was in the same category.

Many of them weren’t even created in the same way. They all evoked a different emotion or thought, too. But they all evoked something.

One that stuck out was by Karen Ruff. It was a sculpture that I wouldn’t do justice to describe, so you might want to just hit up the AACA Facebook page. But she used materials like steel and granite to make something that is extremely cool. And it wasn’t just created, it was constructed.

I encourage you to check it out along with the other artists.  Like I said, a new visual artist featured every week day.https://www.facebook.com/austinareaarts

Also, stay tuned to the website, www.austinareaarts.org. Festival pages are going to be going live very soon.