The Twin Cities is known for its vibrant arts community and summer means you can find an art fair somewhere in the area every weekend. But the first weekend in August is ‘the Big one’…the triple-header of juried art fairs.
The 45-year-old granddaddy is the Uptown Art Fair, with 360 artists chosen from hundreds more throughout the country. The youngest is the Loring Park Art Festival, this year featuring 140 juried artists (including my husband’s cousin, Richard Graves, as a featured artist this year). The third is the Powderhorn Art Fair, now in its 17th season and featuring 180 exhibitors.
All three are outstanding art fairs, but as we approached Powderhorn yesterday morning I could tell that this one had a slightly different feel…a sense of place that sets it apart from the other two, reflecting its multi-cultural community. It had the typical artist tents surrounding the lake and the requisite food booths, but it had more of a community and family feel.
The first booth we saw as we approached was a potter with his wheel…and a couple small children had their hands on the wet clay of a spinning pot. Across the green was accordian music and a children’s puppet theatre…it felt like I was transported to another place as I listened and watched the delighted children.
In another corner of the park was an art tent for kids and I found multiple treasures made in the park program pottery studio. The woman who helped me with a piece that I bought said she had made it and it had been sitting on her dresser for a long time. I asked her why she decided to sell it and she said it was time to contribute some of her work so she could continue to take classes there…proceeds from the Art Fair help fund park programs such as theatre arts, a computer lab, teen center, music recording studio, pottery studio and team sports.
This was my first visit to the Powderhorn Art Fair, but it won’t be my last…it offers both a great fair and a great sense of place and community.
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