Stray Hawkeye

This weekend there are three art fairs going on in Minneapolis.  They’re in Uptown, Powderhorn Park, and Loring Park.  I’ve gone to all of them the last two years, so I thought I’d offer my opinions and tips this time around.

The Uptown Art Fair:

It generally takes over the whole Calhoun Square area, and then some.  They close down Hennipen for 3 or 4 blocks, and it stretches down the Mall (along the Midtown Greenway) all the way over to Lake of the Isles.  It’s big.  It’s also expensive, and crowded.

The art is really nice, and generally feels more like you’re walking through a museum than a street fair.  Some really gorgeous stuff.  These are the professional, career artists.  Unless you happen to drive a Mercedes or a Bentley, you probably don’t need to worry about buying anything though.  Most print I’ve seen, even small ones are $50+, and originals are hundreds, or more often, several thousand.  There may be a bargain here or there that I’ve missed, but it mostly strikes me as a look but don’t touch affair (though I’m pretty cheap, so relative terms here I suppose).

It also tends to be very, very crowded.  If you’re someone with an aversion to large, tightly packed crowds, especially ones that are moving but with no real direction, mulling, where you continually feel in the way, as I do, you might want to make your trip to this one short.  It boarders on panic attack inducing.

There’s usually a couple of bands, quite a bit of food, and a lot of corporate sponsors – like there was a Volvo dealership there last year with cars for you to sit in and try out.

From past years I would say there are a few artists there to definitely check out though (no guarantees they’ll be there again, but they were last year).  There is one that usually sets up just off of Hennepin on the north side of the mall that has extremely realistic sculptures, mostly of people.  Realistic to the degree that when you first see them you stop and stare for about 30 seconds to see if they’re going to blink, because they look like models that are just standing really still.  Then you notice the busts / faces, detached from bodies, which are equally cool, but bordering well into creepy as well.  There’s another that does kinetic sculptures aka cool hunks of metal and wire that have marbles rolling around a track on them.  I can’t really describe them better than that, he was also on the mall, a little further down and on the south side last year.  My other favorite was Michael Gard (enough so that I took his card so I could see his website despite not being able to afford his work).  It’s way cooler than you can really tell from the site.  They’re 3D wire sculptures, that are hollow inside.  They’re both really solid looking, and really airy and light.  It’s an awesome contrast.

The Powderhorn Art Fair:

This one is my favorite of the three.  The artist booths are set up around the lake, but only on one side of the walking path.  This makes it much easier to make a loop and not feel like you’re missing something, need to make two trips, or are weaving back and forth.  This also leaves the other side of the path open as green space, which, again, is great if you don’t care for crowds.  It doesn’t feel nearly as packed in and claustrophobic as the Uptown art fair, and there’s some space so if you need to wander off and make/take a call on your cell, you can do so without feeling like an ass screaming to yourself in a crowd.

The artists tend to be much more local artists doing it part time or starting out.  I talked to a few of them (the ones at the Uptown were pleasant, but not much for conversation) as it was a bit more easy going, and found out this is in large part because the jurying (selection of who gets to show up) is a lot looser, and the fees they have to pay to be there are much lower.  This gives some great variety, and some really fun stuff.  A bit more so so stuff, but which is which probably depends on your tastes.  In contrast to the Volvo dealership at the Uptown last year, I vaguely remember there being a puppet show at the Powderhorn art fair last year.

The prices tend to be more reasonable, but do span a pretty good range.  Small prints in more of the $15-$20 range, and full sized originals in the hundreds instead of the thousands (again, generalizing as best I remember).

Powderhorn is also nice, because their website has a list of all the artists and their websites, so if you want to check it out beforehand you can, or, more importantly, if you keep going back and forth on something while you’re there, and then decide you really want to get it later, you can find the artist again and get it.

Allen Gray was one of my favorites there last year.  Nice photography, and some absolutely great cityscapes.

The one area to not miss at this one it the big tent nearest where the bus lets off (we’ll get to that).  I think it’s called the community showcase, or something like that.  It’s a whole, whole bunch of really little tables of local artists.  More along the lines of high school and college students.  Lots of little stuff, some more political things, a much wider variety, extremely hit or miss, and, as the first thing you see after the Uptown art fair, dirt cheap.  These are more the artists who are really excited to be at an art fair on the selling side for the first time, rather than the ones trying to figure exactly what their profit will be from the weekend.

The Loring Park Art Fair:

This one always strikes me as the middle ground between the other two.  Things are quite nice, and generally okay priced. I tend to pick up a couple of prints here, usually something just strikes the right cord and the right price.  It’s a little crowded, but not as much as Uptown, booths tend to be on one side about half of the time, and both sides the rest, which does kind of make you wander back and forth a bit.  This also tends to be the last one I get to, so they’re usually wrapping up, and I’m usually tired from having walked all of the other two, and a little burnt out on crowds by time I get there.  Have I mentioned I don’t like crowds enough times in this post yet?  I don’t like crowds.

The Loring Park Art Fair has honestly never left that much of an impression on me in terms of style or feel, though I’m usually just about numb by time I get there, but it always seems pleasant, and it’s the one I end up coming home with things from.  So I guess that bodes well for it.

Carol McCrady was my favorite from last year.  She does calligraphy (an art form I absolutely love in the first place), with beautiful illumination around it.  Better than that, it’s not just gorgeous calligraphy, she does it on actual papyrus, that she makes herself according to a traditional method, from papyrus that she grows herself.  It’s one step away from keeping pet squids to get the ink from.  I love it.  I did a little bit of calligraphy in college and both loved doing it and was amazed how challenging it was.  This was one of those booths where I just stood and stared at everything for as long as I felt socially appropriate and then a while longer, and then got a print.

The Art Hop:

The really nice part of all of these art fairs is that there’s a free bus for the weekend that just does a loop between them, so you don’t have to deal with parking (or only need to do so once if you don’t live near one of them).  It goes counter clock wise from Loring to Uptown to Powderhorn to Loring, and so on.  It comes about every 20 minutes and picks up and drops off in the same place.  It sits for a couple minutes at each stop, so don’t feel like you have to sprint over as soon as you see it pull up.

It also stops at the Midtown / Lake St light rail stop on the way from Powderhorn to Loring Park.  This makes no real sense to me, and from past experience, it doesn’t seem to make sense to most people.  A few people always seem to filter off, not sure if this just Loring Park from an angle they’ve never seen, and then rush back on before the bus takes off when they figure out that, no, in fact it is not Loring Park, but rather a collection of rather large, empty parking lots and a lot of concrete.  Consider yourself warned.

Also note that the bus stops at 6pm Saturday, and 5pm Sunday.  As best I remember, that’s the “your butt should be off the bus” time, not the “last time to get your butt on the the bus” time.  So, if you’re taking it, aim for an early departure to avoid having to walk / find a cab / attempt actually figure out normal public transit.

Conclusion:

That pretty well sums up what I know.  Go out and enjoy some art this weekend.