Pete Morris Art blogger www.sunlive.co.nz

With over 100 of Tauranga's and the BOP's best artists registered for Creative Tauranga ArtFair 2011, and others showing their creative talent in ‘Art in Windows', the time for this exciting new event on our city's art calendar is near.

Be sure to mark down Saturday, March 19 on your calendar and come downtown to enjoy the day with friends and family to help make ArtFair2011 a huge success.

Art Fair begins at 10am and runs until 3pm.

The reason for the Art Fair is to focus the wider community's attention on our arts' community by having a showcase event celebrating the tremendous talent and wonderfully diverse work of artists in Tauranga and the Western Bay.

In addition to all those art spaces and the wonderful artwork on display, there will be street performance and music performed by some of the Bay's best street musicians.

The huge outdoor art market will cover lower Wharf Street, the southern end of Willow Street and parts of Red Square.

Many thanks to TCC for allowing free parking in the Elizabeth and Durham Street parking buildings for AF2011.

Parking on the Strand reclamation is also free of charge on Saturdays.

This fabulous day out for friends and family in downtown Tauranga will add colour, vibrancy and reinvigorate our city centre.

Expect to see artists of all genres, all age groups, professional and amateur, all ethnicities, art societies and groups, schools, polytech students, arts and crafts people and groups, potters, weavers, quilters, sculptors, poets, musicians, street art performers and others engaged in the many creative arts.

In addition to this, Art in Windows will run a week either side of Saturday the 19th and even more of our artists will showcase their work in the downtown area.

Artists will display work in the windows of retail stores in the CBD area taking the total number of artists involved in this month's event to over 100.

The works on show in Art in Windows can also be purchased if they take your fancy.

Come and support the first Creative Tauranga Art Fair and help make it a regular event on our city's growing arts calendar.

For more information phone Creative Tauranga on 07 928 5273 or email reception@creativetauranga.org.nz

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