At The 29th Annual Bethany Beach Boardwalk Arts Festival

I spent some time on the Boardwalk in Bethany Beach this afternoon. Christina had a sleep-over Friday night at a friend's house in Selbyville. The girls, and the friend's Mom, decided to go to Bethany for lunch and to check out the Boardwalk Arts Festival and any shopping opportunities.

This is a very obliging Mom.

My job was to meet them there and pick up Christina for the return home. I had some time to fill while they had their fun. So I wandered around.

I got to meet the artist Abraxas, of Milton. I've been following his career for a while. Abraxas paints in an almost photo-realist style; but he takes reality just a step farther and does, frankly, magical things with light. Have a look at his view of the Kalmar Nyckel, for example. It was a pleasure to talk with him.

There were people wandering everywhere. There were painters, glass artists, potters, sculptors, and musicians.

There was a representative from Bluewater Wind on the Boardwalk. This is the outfit that is proposing to build a wind-farm of windmills a dozen miles or so off the coast of Delaware to provide much of our future electricity.

It turned out that I knew this fellow from occasional phone calls when he was in a previous job with the state. We had a nice chat.

He had a cute miniature windmill (solar-powered, ironically) and a set of panoramic views of the ocean from a variety of Delaware-shore vantage points. Each panorama is doubled; one showing the view without the wind-farm, the other showing just how little the wind-farm would be visible.

I asked what his reception had been among the art-show patrons. He said most people have been supportive. Those few who objected, he said, had a problem with being able to see the wind-farm at all from the shore. He said he can respect that concern.

One of the coolest things I found was this blown-glass putter. Artist Justin Cavagnaro, of Dagsboro, creates these and other glass art. His work was impressive; a few references I've found in local media after a quick Google search suggest that Mr. Cavagnaro worked for a time at the Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass. I'm not an expert on glass art, but I know enough to be impressed by that credit and by the work I saw.

This is just one of the glass putters I looked at in his booth. It is a glowing green with flecks of gold leaf within it.

These putters are apparently functional as well as beautiful. He reports that several purchasers are using these putters on courses on a regular basis with no complaints.

The heft of the thing was a bit different, but I could see myself playing with one of these.

It couldn't possibly make my putting any worse, could it?

Mr. Cavagnaro doesn't appear to have a web site, but I took his card so we will have his e-mail: J[DOT]CAVAGNARO[AT]MCHSI[DOT]COM. Just in case anyone wants to order, I don't know, some sort of product. Or something.