The average person perusing the booths at an art festival is confronted with a series of fundamental aesthetic questions: Is this art? Is this a craft? Or is this crap?
In the 159 booths at the Utah Arts Festival, which opened Thursday at downtown’s Library Square, you’ll find plenty of excellent examples of the first two categories. As for the third — well, that’s all a matter of taste.
For instance, Shao Lin Xia makes model airplanes out of aluminum soda cans. To many, this would not exactly be high art. But Xia, 75, is a retired Boeing aeronautic engineer. Each of his models of aircraft — from World War II planes up to the latest stealth crafts — are designed from the actual blueprints, miniaturized using computer-aided design software. Just like real aircraft technology, Xia says.
Xia puts an artistic spin on his models when he painstakingly cuts and bends aluminum from beer cans following his tiny templates. How much work goes into, for instance, a B-26 Martin bomber model?
It takes me five hours for this plane, Xia says as he probes the plane’s tail with a tiny file. It’s not easy!
The prices of Xia’s models range from $15 up to more than $200 for a B-17 with a two-foot wingspan.
Tags: Art
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