Even if you’ve attended one of Art in the High Desert’s eight previous installments, you haven’t been to this Art in the High Desert. Fifty-nine artists, more than half of the artists in the juried, nationally ranked, don’t-miss art show this weekend in Bend’s Old Mill District are new since last year’s show, according to Dave Fox, co-founder of the festival with his wife, Carla.

Artists attending this year’s festival hail from 25 states and Canada and from as far away as Key West, Florida. Central Oregon being no slouch in the visual art department, 11 of this year’s total of 115 artists are homegrown.

Being local does not give artists who apply any advantage, Fox said. The show uses a blind jury process, meaning jurors “have no knowledge of who’s been in before. They know nothing,” he said. Thus, no artist looking to be part of the show is a shoe-in.

Nevertheless, wood sculptor Darryl Cox Jr., of Bend will be making his third appearance at Art in the High Desert.

“It’s an awesome show. I don’t have anything to compare it to, but I’ve talked to other artists who say this is an amazing show,” Cox said.

You see, Art in the High Desert is the only show Cox, who works full-time as a graphic designer at a local sign company, ever participates in. Full-time employment doesn’t afford a lot of time to travel to art shows. Much of the rest of his time is devoted to his art.

“It’s my second full-time job,” he said.

Cox landed on this style of art after seeing work by an artist who did something similar using papier-mache and “other bits of things that she collected,” he said. “She was more into making it look like it was decayed.”

Seeing her work prompted Cox, who studied art in college, to wed frames and more raw-looking materials from trees.

“I had this really cool branch that I had packed around from a tree that died in my yard, like, five years before. I always felt kind of odd for holding onto it for so long,” he said of the origins of his company, Fusion Frames NW.

Cox scours forests and burn areas hunting down gnarled and twisted roots and branches to create his Fusion Frames, unique combinations of the found limbs and ornate antique picture frames, which he finds through auctions and other means.

Creating each Fusion Frame takes patience and many hours. It also requires both artistry and woodworking skills: carving, staining and painting.

“They take forever,” he said, laughing. “I work on several at once, just because if I don’t, I’ll ruin them. … You work on it, let it set, then return to it and work on it some more. If you try to rush it, they don’t cooperate so well.”

Cox, who spends much of his workday at a computer, likes having something tangible to show for the efforts at his side job. He also likes just getting outside and rooting around for sticks.

“I love getting out; a lot of it is just Central Oregon branches that I find,” he said. “Sometimes the hikes end up a little longer. Having to haul back fire branches I find along the way, it’s like, ‘What am I thinking?’”

He also likes old picture frames, even prior to locating the perfect branches to complement them.

“I’ve always liked frames that are just cool. They kind of get shortchanged because everybody looks at the art inside it, and I’m like, ‘But the frame is really cool, too,’” he said.

If he had to pick a favorite part of what he does, it’s the “a-ha moment, where you see two (branch and frame) that really fit together well, and you know that it’s going to work,” he said. “My least favorite would be the hours and hours in between that point and the finished product,” he added, laughing.

As long as there are limbs to be found, Cox will continue making frames.

“I’ve got a disease now,” he said. “Everywhere I go, when I do travel for work, a lot of times I find myself searching and packing a box and shipping it to myself. The people at the counter, like Kinko’s-type places, they ask you what’s in it, and you say, ‘Oh, sticks.’ And they just kind of look at you like, ‘OK, crazy man.’”

Cheryl Chapman, a glass enamel artist living near La Pine, is making her first-ever appearance at Art in the High Desert, finding success on her second attempt after applying for the first time in 2014.

“I ended up getting some feedback from them that I think really helped to tighten my themes down a bit more,” she said. “You pay a little extra for the judges’ feedback, and it was worth it.”

In 2015, she and her husband were in the process of moving to Central Oregon from their former home in California, so she didn’t apply.

“I applied again this year, and I was so thrilled to hear I got in,” said Chapman, who will have more than 50 pieces of her mostly functional art on hand at this weekend’s show.

“I tend to think … based on the level of the new people, that the word keeps getting out further that this is a serious event,” Fox said. “Some of these new ones are just off the charts. Their work is so extraordinary.”

The Foxes are artists themselves, and “over time, we keep hearing consistently — when Carla and I are doing shows, or from email or Facebook or whatever — the artists, they’re buzzing about this show,” Fox said. “Fortunately, for whatever reasons, they have high regard for Art in the High Desert.”