Bellevue Arts Fair

The Bellevue Arts Fair is this weekend if you're looking for something to do. It's a large free annual festival of artists' booths and other artsy activities. It started Friday and continues Saturday 10am-7pm, and Sunday 11am-6pm. Here's a map with the event locations. The fair started in 1948, and has been running annually my entire life. I've attended it several times in the past and always find several interesting things.

Events & Locations

The biggest part is a couple hundred artists' booths in the Bellevue Square parking garage. It's a curated set of artists selling paintings, prints, photography, and metal sculptures. Being inside the garage with asphalt and white lines and oil stains beneath you and concrete all around is a bit of a bummer, but you quickly forget about it once you start looking at the art.

At the mall there's a there's a glass-blowing demonstration at Macy's Fountain Court, just outside the entrance at Bellevue Way & NE 6th. Inside the mall there's a Paper Beads + Origami Animals" activity for children at the Central Court. Take a second to look at the clock tower and stairway, and the small landing between floors. In the early 80s my high school radio class (KASB) had a remote broadcasting booth on that landing during one of the festivals.

The Bellevue Arts Museum has a free exhibit on the history of the fair. It's across the street from the mall on the east side of Bellevue Way across from Macy's, a compact 3-story building. The museum has been closed since last year because of financial difficulties but is open for the fair.

The NE 6th Street pedestrian path between the mall and the transit center has a Creative Corridor" between Bellevue Way and 106th. There's a music stage, community booths, and children's activities. East of 106th is an Arts Market".

At 106th there's a concrete pillar with a crank at the bottom. Turn the crank and it will make the pipe-joint things at the top of the pillar turn. The things are air-conditioning duct components. This industrial art installation is a leftover from the original transit center built in the early 80s, before it was moved to its current location a block further east.

The Bellevue Downtown Park is adjacent to the mall on the south side of NE 4th Street. It has a ring-shaped moat around a grassy field, a garden and a woodsy path on the eastern edge, and a children's area on the southern edge. The odd concrete terraces in the middle of the grass are the foundation of a school that used to be there.

Getting There

If you're coming from Seattle, take Sound Transit route 550 from downtown to the NE 4th Street stop, or Metro route 271 from the U-District to the 102nd Ave NE stop. Both stops are within a block of the fair. If you're coming from the Eastside or elsewhere, you can take the 2 Line light rail to Bellevue Downtown station, or any of a dozen bus routes to the Bellevue Transit Center.

From Bellevue Downtown station, walk straight west along the pedestrian path 3/4 mile and you'll pass all the festivities. The path is called NE 6th Street but is not really a street. On the way you'll pass, in order, the transit center, the Arts Market, the Creative Corridor, the art museum, and Bellevue Square shopping mall. Go through the mall to the parking garage on the other side, where the art-gallery booths are. The park is just south of the mall. The best way to access the park is at the southwest corner of Bellevue Way and NE 4th Street. The 550 westbound stop is right there (southbound on Bellevue Way).

Two More Things

I also found a timeline of Bellevue schools. It touches on several aspects of the history of Bellevue. 1883: First school. 1889: Washington statehood. 1892: Main Street School, 100th & Main, 2 rooms with bell tower. 1907-1909: First automobiles on the Eastside. 1913: Ferryboats replace steamboats for overlake" (across Lake Washington). The ferry Leschi. 1916: School busing begins to Wilburton school. 1919: The school board decides busing is too expensive and closes Wilburton school. The money saved was used to buy coal for .Main Street School." 1930: Union S High School at the now Downtown Park. 1949: Current Bellevue High School on top of a hill opened. 1950: Due to Bellevue's rapid change from a rural to a residential area, the agricultural department and Future Farmers of America (FFA) close at Bellevue High." 1965: Bellevue Community College begins at Newport High School. 1989: Former Union S building demolished to make way for the Downtown Park. 2003: Newsweek Magazine lists Bellevue, Newport, and International High Schools in top 20 US high schools; Sammamish and Interlake High Schools make the honor roll.

One year at the Bellevue Arts Fair in the late 90s my photographer friend John Labovitz had a table showing his black-and-white photos from his travels. Here's his more recent work. The UK/EU summer 2024 album includes the Severn Valley Railroad steam train (starts at 3rd photo in album). Yes, he's a transit fan too.

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