Elissa Brown’s “Build a Longer Table.” Courtesy of the Saint Louis Art Fair
Saint Louis Art Fair
This weekend, the Saint Louis Art Fair will once again fill the streets of downtown Clayton with artist booths, family activities, and musical performances. There’s lots to look forward to at the three-day event, which will mark its 29th year with the theme “Love is in the Art,” inspired by both the community’s response to the arts and a number of couples represented among the presenting artists. We sat down with two of the festival's organizers, executive director Sarah Umlauf and director of operations and programming Tracey Morgan, to get their tips and recommendations for how to best enjoy Art Fair weekend.
Can you start by telling us a bit about this year’s theme?
Sarah Umlauf: Well, this year, the theme for the Saint Louis Art Fair is, “Love is in the Art.” And we came to that theme through a joint effort between our staff and our board of directors. We found that we were in a unique situation. The Saint Louis Art Fair is one of the top festivals in the country, and it is extremely competitive to jury into our show. Every year we hold a blind jury, which means our jurors do not know the names of the applications they're reviewing. Our jurors looked at over 4,000 images, and at the end they selected a show and we found that we had many couples who juried in separately, which is really fun to see. So we have about 13 couples that will be scattered through the festival that are coming here together and independently showing their own work. These are artist duos who have found each other, whether they're life partners or they're married—we even have two artists that are engaged. It's really fun. We definitely felt the love. And last year, when we returned to the streets of downtown Clayton in 2021, we definitely felt the love from the community as well, from the artist community, from the residents and businesses, who were just so grateful to see us back. Tracey and I were getting hugs and high fives all weekend long. So we definitely felt the love from everyone.
Tracey Morgan: We got a lot of feedback from 2021, and just people, restaurateurs, performers…they’re really excited and ready to be a part of the show, especially because of how much love was in the air last year. So it definitely trickled over into this year. Even a few of our performers on our stages are married couples or partners, so it’s been really cool to see. We’re really excited about it.
What an interesting surprise! So they didn’t submit together, but were both juried into the art fair?
SU: Yes, it was very sweet. Of course we always expect collaborating artist duos. Our Best in Show artists from 2021, Bozenna and Lukasz Bogucki, are a married couple who produce wearable metal art. So we knew we had collaborators that were coming to the show that were married. We were just so surprised to see these independent artists jury in separately and find out that their partner or their spouse had also juried in. It was really fun to see.
Are there any artists or projects this year that you’re particularly looking forward to?
SU: For myself, I am so excited to see some new artists who have not been to the Saint Louis Art Fair before. Our commemorative print artist, Elissa Brown, has never exhibited at the fair before, but her piece just really resonated with us. Her commemorative print is called, “Build a Longer Table,” and it is just spectacular. She’s a mixed-media artist, so I've been looking at all of her work and the commemorative print as 2-D pieces, because, of course, it's a flat print . But her work in reality is three-dimensional. It has layers to it. It's painted wood that's layered almost like a diorama. So I'm so excited to see her work in person and to see those layers and the textures.
TM: I’d have to agree with Sarah on that. I just love the message that her work brings. I'm definitely excited to see what other work she has and just how festival-goers respond to her being the commemorative print artist, because the photo that she submitted of her artwork definitely speaks to a nice return, a beautiful return, a diverse return. Another I'm a little partial to is Igor Menaker, and he's actually a mentor of mine. I absolutely adore his work. He's a photographer from Chicago. I'm really excited to see him and talk to him and see what new work he's come up with. But mostly, for me, since I work more with entertainment, I am really excited about our lineup that we have on our Main Stage, our Performing Arts Stage, and our new Independent Artist Stage. I'm really looking forward to seeing some of the local talent and culture that we were able to bring this year.
What events are you most looking forward to people experiencing?
SU: We are bringing in some interactive arts experiences that we haven't done before. We always love to have what we call live art demonstrations at the Saint Louis Art Fair. So this year, we're bringing in, for one of the features, an amazing florist named Tony Montano, and he is with BUDS. Every day of the Art Fair, he is creating a massive floral installation live on the streets of Clayton. There's three locations, which everyone can find in the program guide, but that's really exciting, to see a live, larger-than-life floral installation being installed before your eyes...We're also having some chalk artists on Friday and Saturday, and that's always so fun, because once they're done, they encourage people to come up to walk and view the work. One of the chalk art installations will actually be three-dimensional, so I think people will have fun with that. We're also going to have live chef demonstrations presented by the Clarendale. They are bringing in their chefs, and they'll have samples available for the public. And let me tell you, if you're a foodie, you're going to want to be there to get those little bites. We've seen the menu, and it is five star. It’s fantastic. You're going to have to come see it and check it out to know what it is, but it's phenomenal.
TM: We're also bringing in the Independent Artist Stage, which is really going to highlight a lot of local talent. We’ll have buskers, I have some comedians coming, so it's going to be a really exciting time with a lot of new things featured.
What’s your top tip for newcomers? What’s something folks just cannot miss?
TM: Any of it! Laughs. Just start at one end and go through the other.
SU: I do like to tell folks, if you've never been to the Saint Louis Art Fair before, and if you can only spare one day with us, I definitely like for folks to start on the east end of the fair, because the east end of the fair has all the family-friendly entertainment. It has the restaurants, it has the Main Stage and Performing Arts Stage. Then you enter, and you just see lines and lines of artist booths, and you've got to try to see as many as you can. Luckily our streets are beautiful, so you'll have plenty of room to walk. And if something catches your eye, you'll have a chance to walk into that booth, meet the artist who actually created the pieces, and talk to them. This is what's unique and special about the Saint Louis Art Fair. You're not just picking up a framed piece of artwork from a store with no reference point, you actually get to speak to the maker, the artisan. You get to hear their inspiration, hear their background. And I'm sure, after hearing that, you'll connect with it even more and it'll make that piece that much more special and memorable to you.
TM: The Art Fair is definitely special, and we are working really hard to make sure it's inclusive for everybody. There is something for everyone here, so we definitely encourage people to come down and see what you enjoy.
SU: It is seven blocks of entertainment and art. I know that sounds overwhelming. It sounds like a lot, but trust me, Tracey and I, we easily put in 40 miles of walking over the weekend, so it can be done. You don't have to put in that much, but trust me, it can be done. You can see it all. There is time.
Are there any other highlights this year you think people should know about?
TM: Our partnership with Story Stitchers, which is an organization that has artists go to neighborhoods and create visual art installations, do different types of poetry, or just anything to bring up that area of the community. They're going to put on a few performances for us. We have an interactive step team, Gentleman of Vision, that'll be there. We have the Saint Boogie Brass Band that'll be there putting on a show. We just have a lot of really good local talent that really want to give back to their areas. Being a part of the Saint Louis Art Fair extends that invitation to anyone who may not have known about it before, so it's a really special time. The attendees last year were really engaged and were really excited, so much so that we actually did bring one performer back. It’s just a really inspirational time.
SU: The accessibility, the diversity, the beauty of that coming to the streets of downtown Clayton...we want to see it more, and we hope that the Art Fair inspires more of that engagement. And if people are feeling that it's overwhelming and they don't know where to start, we are going to have customized walking tours this year. They're going to be accessible, so we'll have listening devices, and they are descriptive tours led by a real person. We welcome everybody to the Art Fair, and we want you to feel welcome and feel like you belong.
