Crafts Made With Creative License Drive Obscure Fair

At this time of the year for the last 18 years, artist Linda McInnis has shown her work at a little-known yet widely attended art festival in Costa Mesa.

She sells handcrafted ethnic-doll wall sculptures, some to customers who have traveled from as far as Arizona to attend the Artistic License Fair.

“Once they attend the fair, people come back every year to purchase items from their favorite artists,” says McInnis, of Mission Viejo.

“The event is a real occasion that people look forward to all year.”

The event--to be held Friday through Oct. 26--includes a variety of art pieces, from ceramics and wood carvings to decorative eggs and handblown glass.

To ensure quality, all of the artists must jury into the fair, says the event’s coordinator, Nancy Gary Ward, a Corona weaver.

“They audition their work in front of a panel of artists, who then score their work on a point system, which includes a variety of criteria, including craftsmanship and originality,” says Ward.

Joanna Craft of Balboa Island uses pliers and other hand tools to form, bend and shape fabricated wire into elaborate embellishments on bottles, candlesticks and perfume bottles. “I love working with wire, so I started wrapping the bottles and decorating them. The first one sold immediately,” says Craft, who has participated in the fair two years.

Laguna Niguel artist Diane Daniels works with metal on an even grander scale, creating metal folk art. Her whimsical garden-oriented pieces are shaped like sunflowers and bees.

Daniels uses hammers and saws to form the metal then wires and rivets the materials together.

She ages the metal in the sun. The natural sheen of the metal always comes through with her work because she uses no coatings or age inhibitors.

Santa Ana artist Gregg Davila will display hanging baskets and wall baskets that are filled with perennials, small shrubs and decorative items, such as driftwood.

Davila, who works by day as a dental hygienist and has an art background in inking, created the baskets as a hobby. A year ago, he began selling his creations to local shops and homeowners.

“I work with plants in much the same way a painter works with an easel,” says Davila.

“As I put the baskets together, I consider the texture and cut of the leaves and the flowers and composition of the basket so that it catches the eye and keeps it moving in a circular fashion.”

The Artistic License Fair, Friday and Oct. 25 and 26, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Estancia Park, 1900 Adams Ave., Costa Mesa. Free. (909) 371-6507.