(Photo courtesy of DesMoinesArtsFestival.org)

The Des Moines Arts Festival, rated among the Top 5 in the U.S., celebrates it 10th year in 2007. Featured will be over 150 premier juried artists and 24 “emerging” artists from the state of Iowa. Artists will exhibit in 14 categories, including wood, metalworks, and sculpture.

I think this is the second year that the festival will be located in Des Moines’ new Gateway Park, just down the street from the August Home Publishing offices. I’m excited about attending this year and so I’ve spent a few hours looking through the galleries of all the artists that will attend. I always get a lot of inspiration for my woodworking hobby from shows like this, and I’ll even go through a phase occasionally where I’ll work only on boxes or chairs for a period of time after I see something I like at a show.

For the last several years the Des Moines Arts Festival has attracted over 200,000 people and it’s also become a great place for young artists, like Matthew Obbink (whose tables are featured in the photo at the top of the page), an Iowa State University student competing in the Emerging Iowa Artists Program category.