For three sunny days in mid-May the people of Kansas City played host to “Spectrum Fantastic Art Live” a show of Fantasy art featuring more than 200 exhibitors, panel lectures, live painting demonstrations and portfolio reviews by renowned art directors from the world’s leading creative companies. Spectrum itself is an annual publication started in 1993 by Arnie and Cathy Fenner as an outlet for what they call “Fantastic” art, the live art show a natural extension added 3 years ago. This year beautiful.bizarre was on hand to take in all of the drawings of busty women, comic book characters, pirates, monsters and everything else the boundless talent of the fantasy world put out on display! Highlights included meeting heroes like Camilla d’Errico, Tim Bruckner and Emi Slade as well discovering Kansas City based talent like Matt Eeks and Hector Casanova.
What was most striking about Spectrum Fantastic Art Live was the tremendous excitement the artists had for each other. From set up to tear down and every moment between artists were at each other’s booths gushing about each other, asking for autographs and buying each others work. It was a non-stop lovefest before the fans even arrived.
Andrew Wilson