ART FAIR : SUNDAY IN THE PARK : Myth-Cast : They’re not different from you and me, except maybe when it comes to creativity and talent.

You many think that artists seclude themselves in small studios. They drink too much wine. They cut off their ears.

But after spending one day in Ventura’s Plaza Park, all manner of stereotypes and myths about artists evaporate.

On the first Sunday of each month about 85 artists gather in the park to sell their works. They sit in the sun, they talk with customers, they joke and laugh. They even eat.

Finishing off the last of his hamburger, Tom Collart doesn’t look quite like a starving artist. His days are spent as a planner for Ventura County and as a city councilman. But on vacations and weekends, Collart is a photographer. And his quest for the perfect picture has taken him across the United States.

But don’t expect to find images of landscapes or national monuments in his vending booth. Collart focuses his lens on names--”Clint” spray-painted on walls, “Lisa” carved onto trees, and “David” scrawled into wet cement. Besides simply hanging Collart’s small pictures on a wall, customers have used them as original birthday cards and as place settings for dinner parties. “I travel to out-of-the-way places because that’s where you find the best pictures,” Collart said.

Bubble Gum Alley is one of Collart’s favorite haunts. Located in San Luis Obispo, a brick wall in the alley is covered with names spelled out in chewed-up bubble gum. And on the Kona Coast of Hawaii there is a long stretch of black lava near the beach where people use white rocks to assemble names.

Unlike Collart, Babette Downey of Simi Valley is a full-time artist. Sitting in her vending booth, Downey snipped away at a blue piece of suede that was destined to become an earring. On the shelf in front of her was a large stick, its top adorned by a bobcat’s skull: her rendition of coup sticks, once used by American Indians during ritual dances to ward off evil spirits. On the wall to her left were hangings made of turkey, rooster and pheasant feathers. And in a box behind her was a chirping baby bird.

“The poor thing fell out of its nest so I guess I’m stuck taking it home and caring for it,” said Downey, who sells art inspired by American Indian tribes of the West.

“I love animals and I really respect the Indian cultures because they only killed what they needed. They left the Earth as they found it.”

As a full-time nurse in Los Angeles Jessie Byrd’s main objective is to help heal others. But she has been traveling up to Ventura for the past two years to sell her African-style jewelry.

“Some of the artists here have been making jewelry for years and years and they’re really great at it,” she said. “It’s more gratifying for me to get a compliment from one of them than it is to sell a piece to a customer.”

But making a sale is also nice, though Byrd was surprised when one customer passed over her jewelry and instead bought a wooden carving used in her display. The carving, which Byrd said was made in Kenya, is a fertility doll that legend holds will bless couples with many healthy babies.

“I like it because it’s exotic-looking,” said Robert Le Maire of Ventura, clutching his newest acquisition. “Plus, it’s kind of cute,” he said of the carving with its large, flat, round head and long, thin body.

“We were told that it’s a fertility symbol. But if it doesn’t work we can always use it as a spatula.”

* WHERE AND WHEN: In July, the First Sunday In The Park art fair is held on the fourth to coincide with Independence Day. Otherwise the fair is on the first Sunday of each month except in January, when the fair is on hiatus. Open from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., the fair is located in Plaza Park in downtown Ventura at Thompson Boulevard and Chestnut Street.