Fueled by Clouds & Coffee: A Friday Anniversary at Gingerbread Village

12/8/17 With an emphasis on Seattle's waterfront, this exhibit includes the Big Wheel and an octopus.

Six years ago this month, five urban sketchers wanted to sketch the Sheraton’s annual Gingerbread Village exhibit, but we knew weekends would be mobbed, so we decided to have an ad hoc outing on a Friday. That was the first of what became the bimonthly ad hoc Friday USk meetups, and the group has been growing ever since. To celebrate our anniversary, we met at the event that initially inspired us: Gingerbread Village.

Kathleen sketches the exhibit featuring Ballard.

For this annual fundraiser, Seattle’s major architectural firms team up with local chefs to design elaborate, theme-based dioramas made of cookies and candies (voluntary donations to the event somewhat ironically benefit type 1 diabetes research). Now in its 25^th year, Gingerbread Village moved from the Sheraton to US Bank City Centre – a much better venue. Instead of displaying the exhibits all in one row, the confectionary creations were spread throughout City Centre’s main floor, dispersing the crowds into small clusters instead of a single line, which made the displays easier to see (and sketch).

Although I had a better view, I have to say I was a bit underwhelmed. Unlike previous years that had strong visual themes like Harry Potter, Star Wars (my favorite), Christmas carols, sailing ships, and fairytale castles, this year’s theme was less defined: “25 Years of Cheer: A Celebration of Seattle.” Each exhibit focused on a geographic area of Seattle and included images of the nostalgic past or the imagined future. The most visually fun was a fat sailor riding an orca in an homage to Ballard’s Scandinavian heritage. While colorful and sometimes kinetic, most of the exhibits left me scratching my head as I tried to understand the theme’s interpretation.

I went up to the second floor to sketch this rotating
exhibit of downtown, including the Smith Tower.

Regardless, I enjoy sketching this event not so much for the elaborate sweet creations as for the people of all ages who come to see them. Although I had space to step up close to the exhibits, I decided to hang back as I usually do and focus on the viewers.