Pete Morris Art blogger www.sunlive.co.nz

With 87 spaces filled by the Bay's creative best, this exciting new event on Tauranga's art calendar is shaping up to be a great success.

Please make sure that ArtFair 2011, to be held on Saturday, March 19 is highlighted on your calendar!

This community event will transform Downtown Wharf Street, Willow Street and parts of Red Square into a huge outdoor art market.

Downtown Tauranga will be host to the people of Tauranga, visitors from around the Bay and further afield.

Artists of all ages and genres are displaying their work and offering it for sale. There will also be street performance and some of the Bay's best street musicians will be adding even more colour to an arts-filled day.

There will be artworks to appeal to all tastes at ArtFair 2011. The region's best potters will show their works and artisans creating in many different media will remind us about the wealth of amazing talent we have living in our midst.

Highly accomplished and recognised artists such as Nic Clegg, Liz Sparks and Angela Maritz will have art spaces at ArtFair 2011 alongside those who are just beginning to explore art. It's great to have them and so many artists of this calibre participating and providing artistic inspiration to others.

Art Fair brings a large representation of our art community together in a way not seen in a setting like this previously.

Creative Tauranga Art Fair 2011 is a great opportunity to have a fun day out experiencing the Bay's creativity with family, friends and visitors. Parking along the waterfront reclamation is free on Saturdays.

Let's ensure that our first Art Fair is a real success and make it a part of Tauranga's increasingly interesting cultural life.

Pete Morris is an occasional painter and art lover. He is a free-lance writer with a particular interest in promoting the visual arts in Tauranga.