The Outdoor Art Festival Season!
A trip to Chicago, new Poster Art, and a bucket list of shows
Summertime. The time of year when you’re likely to find an outdoor art festival or two to enjoy somewhere near you. Outdoor art festivals come in various sizes, types, and levels of prestige. They likely are doing their best to support and promote artists, arts organizations, and charities - while bringing communities together. They can also make art more affordable and accessible to a wide range of art enthusiasts and collectors - while passing that enthusiasm on to the next generation.
Many festival artists spend their summers making art during the week and then spending the weekends carefully shuffling it from show to show in the back of a van, packing and unpacking everything over and over again - hoping to make enough to pay the bills, have some fun, and get to the next show on the list. Include a few long-distance shows in the mix, and it can become a challenge to find studio time in between shows.
I’ve been a part of this meandering artist lifestyle of packing up art (and tent - including display walls, decor, and fixtures) and sharing it directly with the public for as long as I’ve been making and selling my art, and have participated in all kinds of different shows.
Keep reading to see my review of Chicago’s Old Town Art Fair and Wells Street Art Fair featured below.
However, recently, despite the sudden shock of show life being wiped from my schedule during Covid, I’ve actually enjoyed the quieter summers with a very limited number of shows. In fact, this year I’m only participating in one such event - the Salem Art Fair & Festival (after being asked to be their 2023 poster artist.)
Fewer shows mean fewer sales, but I realized during this particular later-life kids-raised post-pandemic period of my life that I want more time to explore my art as well as enjoy other adventures. But currently, I’m not quite ready to leave show sales behind, and I need to start seriously planning for my art festival retirement as I choose to pursue installation art projects and gallery opportunities instead.
At the same time, it’s been fun thinking back on the shows I’ve done while I consider which ones I still want to do. My very first big (and very wild) event was in 2006 at the Fremont Fair in Seattle, WA where I set up next to a trendy (and popular!) tent selling utility kilts and watched a parade of naked bike riders flow past my booth. Needless to say, it was a memorable show! Since then, I’ve done everything from wine shows, craft fairs, and farmer’s markets to best-in-class fine art shows. Most shows were juried. A few were not. Nearly all were profitable, some were amazing, and a few were a bust - but that’s the gamble of a traveling artist lifestyle. You never know. Even selling at the same show twice can be vastly different from year to year.
For the really curious, you can see my full list of 47 different juried shows in which I have participated on my “About Page” at: JenniferLommers.com (scroll to the bottom)
I have participated in shows for many reasons (not only necessarily monetary). Some shows are amazing fundraisers for their arts communities (e.g. Anacortes Arts Festival and Edmonds Arts Festival), or for causes dear to me (e.g. Wild Arts Festival); and some simply for their enduring kindness and support of artists and for the needs of their communities (e.g. Fresh Paint Art Festival and Kings Mountain Art Fair). For these shows, and many of the smaller shows on my personal participation list - I would consider doing them even if it may not be my best show financially. I believe in shows that believe in their artists and communities - which, fortunately, usually go hand in hand with being able to sell the art.
But over the last seventeen years, as I experienced shows that were great as well as downright disappointing - I have slowly accumulated a “bucket list” of top-tier shows I want to do before I finally retire from this show life.
My Art Festival Bucket List
This list is for those shows I’ve always wanted to do but have either dismissed due to distance, been denied or waitlisted, or didn’t have the right kind of art to apply for the show in the past. Not included on this list - I’m proud to have already participated in the Bellevue Art Fair (2023) and in Art in the High Desert (2011, 2014) - which otherwise would both be on this list as excellent top-tier shows.
I still might apply again to Art in the High Desert (one of the best-running, artist-focused shows I had ever seen) even though the show has moved and is under a new directorship after it didn’t run for a couple of years. Knowing the new director, I’m sure he and his team will do everything possible to make the new show a success. I probably won’t apply to Bellevue again. Even though the artists at this show were amazing, I’m not a huge fan of being trapped in a covered parking garage for three days next to a mall. The artist relations were also not handled at the level I would expect of such a show, but this may be the result of it being the first year back in-person since Covid, so hopefully that’s an anomaly.
You also won’t find La Quinta Art Fair (2012) on this list - which was once deemed the #1 art festival in the country. This show ended operations in 2019. Honestly, though, my favorite part of this show was having a booth next to John Kilduff of Let’s Paint TV. There is currently a new show, “La Quinta Art Celebration” which I may add to my bucket list later as it has also received a #1 rating from The Art Fair Sourcebook.
Currently, my goal is to get into these shows at least once over the next 5 years, and then officially retire from the festival life. This won’t be an easy feat, but I hope keeping this list alive will motivate me to create some of my best work yet.
Old Town Art Fair - Chicago, IL
Art in the Pearl - Portland, OR
Cherry Creek Art Festival - Denver, CO
Plaza Art Fair - Kanses City, MO
Sun Valley Arts and Craft Festival - Ketcham, ID
Main St. Fort Worth Arts Festival - Fort Worth, TX
Saint Louis Art Fair - Saint Louis, MO
Smithsonian Craft Show - Washington DC (this is actually an indoor event)
Thinking of these shows actually leads me to my latest adventure and a test of whether I would actually be willing to drive the distance across the country (I’m in Oregon) to participate in them.
My recent cross-country vacation test drive
Corvallis, Oregon to Chicago, Illinois via:
Seattle, WA; Boise, ID; Salt Lake City, UT; Boulder, CO; and Saint Louis, MO.
Earlier this month I took a two-week cross-country driving vacation with my youngest to see family, experience a bucket-list art show, and assure myself that I would be happy to drive for multiple days to show my work.
Previously, my furthest traveled show (to which I drove) was in Tuscon, AZ. I did also show my work at a small show in Glencoe IL several years ago, but I flew to that one (which was near where my brother lived), rented a tent, and then shipped all my art out to him. For my type of art, I wouldn’t recommend doing it this way again.
It was an amazing adventure filled with plenty of roadside attractions, antique stores, art galleries, and family meet-ups.
It was also my third driving trip since last August to Boulder, so I’m now feeling quite comfortable with that part of the journey - even trying a different route each time. But never having driven across the midwest, I was curious how that portion of the trip would feel and how tired I would be. We took our time and even enjoyed staying an extra night in Saint Louis to soak up the arts and culture there. I highly recommend a trip to the Saint Louis Art Museum (pictured middle-bottom, above).
So, after a leisurely two weeks to meander from Oregon to Chicago - it was exciting to pull into the windy city for a chance to walk through the Old Town Art Fair (as an attendee - not an artist).
Chicago’s Old Town Art Fair
The Art Fair sits in a beautiful section of the city between bustling streets and Lincoln Park (which is well worth its own exploration). A canopy of trees shades the rows of booths and music was quietly playing at various points. It was easy to enjoy a nice stroll through the booths.
The quality of the art was excellent. I saw a few artists I knew, a few I happen to follow online, and found a few new favorites - such as:
Glenna Adkins - Mixed Media Artist
I simply adored her joyful use of color, pleasing compositions, and the ease of her abstract markings and design.
Alla Tsank - Painting
These portraits quickly drew me into her booth. They were stunningly beautiful and made the botanical themes I love into intricately painted poetry.
Helen Gotlib - Printmaking
Since I’ve been playing with botanical printmaking, I was intrigued by the process used in these delicately ephemeral portrayals of plants and flowers.
(Yes, as a 2D artist, I lean toward looking at other 2D artists. I know there was also amazing work in other media, I’m just more knowledgeable about and interested in 2D.)
Unfortunately, we arrived at the Old Town Art Fair, after mistakenly touring the Wells Street Art Fair thinking that was what we wanted. By the time we reached Old Town, we were pretty hot and tired and I did not spend as much time as I had hoped exploring the show. On my short visit, what I was happy to see, though, were crowds of people in a pleasant atmosphere enjoying beautiful art. I would definitely want to give this show a try and/or another visit.
What I would recommend if you go, though, is having a map! If I had realized where we were and how to directly get to the art fair I would have planned my day differently. However, I trusted in the knowledge of locals who didn’t know as much about the show as I had expected (or that there were two shows, which I should have explained earlier). I also would have allowed for spending more than one day enjoying the Chicago art scene. There is SO MUCH to see! (Fortunately, I’ve traveled to Chicago several times and have already enjoyed much of what is offered there - but it’s all worth a repeat visit!)
Wells Street Art Fair
Even though I knew this art fair was on the same weekend as the Old Town Art Fair, I wasn’t expecting it to be directly in the actual “Old Town” of Chicago (including city signs announcing such at each end). So, when we arrived to check out the art fairs, we wandered the “Wells Street Art Fair” thinking it was the “Old Town Art Fair” and were left wondering why the artwork was such a mix of quality while the music stages were exceptionally loud and the street was filled with people ready for a party. It was definitely giving off a different vibe than what I expected of a top-tier fine art show. However, it still had many artists I enjoyed, and if I had entered it with a different mindset I probably would’ve loved every bit of it. I will admit, the show was also more suited to my particular shopping budget, and I happily bought a little journal from one of the artists. And I wasn’t the only one. There were plenty of shoppers enjoying the show!
Overall - I would highly recommend both Chicago Art shows as an artist and as a patron. It all depends on what you’re selling and what you want to buy.
I now hope to travel to more outdoor art festivals, whether I attend as an artist (hoping to get into a “bucket list” show) or as a patron - and I want to encourage others to do so too. They are a beautiful way to celebrate art, artists, and community - one which, unfortunately, keeps threatening to die off as each generation of traveling show artists determines whether it’s worth making the trip or not. When the next summer art festival makes its rounds near you, be it a little 10-booth craft fair or hundreds of booths filled with artists from around the country - I encourage you to explore all that it brings to your community - and show your support for a local or traveling artist if you can.
Happy Summer,
Jennifer
p.s. I’ve gone a bit off-schedule from my wishful routine of posting something here every Sunday. It looks like that’s just the way summer is going to be. My studio life is getting very busy right now and I have personal travel to enjoy and family matters to attend to as well. I do still love to share notes from my artist life here, though, and will continue to do so when I can. Hopefully, life will settle down in the Fall and I can get back into a routine. We’ll see. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy my rambling posts. I certainly enjoy sharing them with you. Thanks for being here and following along!