Street Arts
>> In June the 54th incarnation of the yearly 57th Street Art Fair brought 300 artists and craftspeople-and thousands of would-be patrons-to Hyde Park. Here's some of what they saw and bought.

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Each year the fair's organizing committee commissions a poster from a local artist or designer. The 2001 design by Joseph Gilbert was also available as wearable art (below), a neon-green souvenir T-shirt.

While a street musician fiddled (above), fair goers snacked at the Ray School PTA's annual fund-raising "Picnic in the Park" (below), and New Mexico jeweler Michelle Heath (second below) plied her fiery trade.

Once a graduate student in anthropology at Chicago, Valerie Hector (above) has studied beaded textiles from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Her work has been featured in Smithsonian and American Craft.

The fair's pavilions crept north along Kimbark Avenue, attracting visitors from Hyde Park, all over the city, and beyond-including a cat-owning lover of the arts (above).

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