PHOTOGRAPHS BY K.B. DIXON

On a bright and sunny Saturday, photographer K.B. Dixon did something he hadn’t done in fifteen or sixteen months: He grabbed his camera and went out to mingle in a crowd. What lured him, besides the weather and sense that the world was waking from its long shutdown, was the gathering of the artists and craftsmakers at the Slabtown Makers Market, a mini-street fair and studio tour at NW Marine Art Works, a warehouse-turned-artists-center in Northwest Portland. The two-day market will also be open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday, July 25.

What Dixon discovered was a lot of people rediscovering the pleasure of simply being out and about, admiring row after row of beautiful handmade things, from jewelry to clothing to clayworks to paintings large and small; maybe grabbing a nibble; maybe even buying a thing or three that struck their fancy. For the vendors, it was just as much of a pleasure: showing their works, seeing people, engaging in conversations, maybe selling something.

Dixon’s pleasure came in part from eyeing a scene, framing it and snapping it, and capturing the spirit of the time and place in visual images. Here’s a flavor of the things he saw on Saturday, and that you can see, too, if you venture out on Sunday: