Sunday, June 25, 2006
Art Crisis.
Every year the fam checks out the Boston Mills ArtFest. The ArtFest is one of those Akron cultural treasures not everyone knows about but everyone should. For two weekends each summer, the ski resort at Boston Mills opens up a juried art show featuring artists from all over -- mostly the United States, but they generally pick up a couple of Europeans and South Americans who do the American art show scene. Go to out-of-state shows and mentioned being from Akron and you learn that Boston Mills is a big deal -- everyone has heard of it.
If you haven't heard of the art show scene, it's quite the subculture. If you hang out long enough, you hear artists renew acquaintences or talk about what shows they are going to next. A number of artists don't sell in galleries or a studio space. Instead, they spend the winter building up inventory, then take to the road all summer.
This year we went and learned of a bona fide disaster which so far the press hasn't really picked up on. Thursday night's storms triggered a flood through the North Tent of the show.
The photos showed waist-deep water running off the ski slopes and rushing through the tents on the way to the river. When we were there Saturday, the North Tent remained gutted.
Though other tents are still full of artists.
From talking to some of the artists, everyone lost inventory, and some -- estimates running at 6-8 -- lost everything. One of the potters on our short list this year was gone by Saturday.
I guess the damage in Stark County and elsewhere in the state was sufficiently compelling that this story didn't cross the media radar screen. At first blush, it seems somewhat effemeral. But imagine if a flood had wiped out 6-8 small businesses for a year. These artists are in fact small business people and lost their entire year's business.
Meanwhile, we wonder about the hit the show itself took. While the show doesn't open to the general public until Friday, Thursday is Preview Night -- the rich folks pony up for wine tasting and first dibs on the really pricy stuff. Needless to say, that didn't happen. Indeed, the show didn't open until Saturday.
Not all the news was bad. We bought an amazing blown glass piece. This is "Arches" (center), getting friendly with the new neighbors in our pottery collection. Yes, that's really glass.
The ArtFest runs two weekends -- the second go-round is this weekend with a new slate of artists. Its worth checking out, and worth supporting an Akron institution that is hurting right now.
If you haven't heard of the art show scene, it's quite the subculture. If you hang out long enough, you hear artists renew acquaintences or talk about what shows they are going to next. A number of artists don't sell in galleries or a studio space. Instead, they spend the winter building up inventory, then take to the road all summer.
This year we went and learned of a bona fide disaster which so far the press hasn't really picked up on. Thursday night's storms triggered a flood through the North Tent of the show.
The photos showed waist-deep water running off the ski slopes and rushing through the tents on the way to the river. When we were there Saturday, the North Tent remained gutted.
Though other tents are still full of artists.From talking to some of the artists, everyone lost inventory, and some -- estimates running at 6-8 -- lost everything. One of the potters on our short list this year was gone by Saturday.
I guess the damage in Stark County and elsewhere in the state was sufficiently compelling that this story didn't cross the media radar screen. At first blush, it seems somewhat effemeral. But imagine if a flood had wiped out 6-8 small businesses for a year. These artists are in fact small business people and lost their entire year's business.
Meanwhile, we wonder about the hit the show itself took. While the show doesn't open to the general public until Friday, Thursday is Preview Night -- the rich folks pony up for wine tasting and first dibs on the really pricy stuff. Needless to say, that didn't happen. Indeed, the show didn't open until Saturday.
Not all the news was bad. We bought an amazing blown glass piece. This is "Arches" (center), getting friendly with the new neighbors in our pottery collection. Yes, that's really glass.
The ArtFest runs two weekends -- the second go-round is this weekend with a new slate of artists. Its worth checking out, and worth supporting an Akron institution that is hurting right now.
# posted by Scott Piepho @ 11:33 AM 
