Springfield Art Association's Betsy Dollar previews the upcoming Edwards Place Fine Art Fair happening Saturday, Sept. 19 from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 20 from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.
The community is invited to experience two days of fine art from artists across the region and beyond, as well as art demonstrations, live music, food vendors, a large book sale, tours of historic Edwards Place, activities for kids, and much more.
Melissa Snider:
Welcome to Community Voices, a production of NPR Illinois. I'm your co-host, Melissa Snider. In the studio today with me is Betsy Dollar, executive director of the Springfield Art Association. She is here to tell us about an upcoming event happening in Springfield this September. The Edwards Place Fine Art Fair. Betsy, thank you for joining me.
Betsy Dollar:
Oh, always happy to be here.
Melissa Snider:
So tell us about the Edwards Place Fine Art Fair and what people can expect from this year's event.
Betsy Dollar:
Okay, so we are in our 38th year. So this fair has been around for a while, not quite as long as the old Capital Art Fair, but still, 38 years is nothing to sneeze at. We expect about 60 artists this year. I say that because a couple always fall out the week before the fair due to some natural disaster or something. But anyway, so approximately 60 artists with their tents pop up on the front lawn of historic Edwards Place. And in addition to all of the art in all of the booths, because we have seven different media categories that we represent there. Edwards Place itself is open for free tours. We have a giant used book sale, and this year it's going to be extraordinary. We have so many books of all kinds. People that say, is it just art books? No. We have a lot of art books this year, an extraordinary number of art books this year, but we also just have tons and tons of books. No matter what you're looking for, I'll bet we have the topic. So we have a book demonstrations going on in both our ceramics lab and our glass blowing studio. So you get to go and watch them blow glass or throw a pot on the potter's wheel. So you can see people making art as well.
Melissa Snider:
Are those free admission also or do those cost?
Betsy Dollar:
No, they're demonstration. But our fall classes do start two weeks after the fair, the very last week in September. So registration is open for that, but you might get inspired seeing all of this and you can sign up for a class to learn how to do it. So you can check out our studios. They'll all be open so you can look around in that regard. There are live music performances throughout the weekend. So there's really a lot going on. It's a pet friendly event. So if you have a pet on a leash who's good with other animals, bring them over. So just a tremendous amount of food vendors. Mrs. Clay's is always there and they will be back this year with their fried green tomatoes. another big hit for everybody. So that's a very popular destination at our art fair. And a lot of artists have been coming for 30 years. We have some new ones. The art fair business is one of those things where a lot of baby boomers are retiring out and new artists are not coming in at the same rate. So we don't have quite as many artists as say we had 10 years ago. It's a jury process to get into our show. We feel like we have pretty high quality in all of the media that we represent. It's always the third weekend in September. So this year it is the 19th and 20th. to 5 on Saturday and 10 to 4 on Sunday.
Melissa Snider:
So are these local artists or where are all the artists traveling from?
Betsy Dollar:
There are a few local artists. They're mostly regional. The furthest that most of them come, we've got a couple from Florida. We've got one guy who comes from Colorado, but a lot of them are Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, so Midwestern region mostly. We also will have a really interesting exhibition in our gallery that's on that campus called Art is Amazing. And it's intended to incorporate work that can be touched for people who are visually impaired. So we're doing it in conjunction with the Educational Center for the Visually Impaired. You can go into the gallery and touch everything as much as you want, which is usually a no-no. And in this case, it's going to be set up like a maze. We're actually going to have to walk through and sort of feel your way through those walls, hence the name Amazing. So this is the third time we've done a What Art Feels Like show. We do it about every other year. And it's just very different because you don't usually get to touch things like this. That's on the same campus. So we have a 5 acre campus. So you've got historic Edwards Place with the giant lawn. That's where the art fair basically takes place. And then literally attached to the historic house, we've got a formal art gallery and we've got seven different studios. So we have a studio for metals, we have a studio for ceramics, we have a studio for three different types of glass. We do hot glass, leaded glass and fused glass. And then we have three different painting and drawing mixed media studios. So it's all in sort of one mass between 4th and 5th Street and Dodge and Miller. It's not really quite a full square block. We wish it was, but it's a good area. And so that entire area is filled with art for the weekend.
Melissa Snider:
You're listening to Community Voices, a production of NPR, Illinois. Executive Director of the Springfield Art Association, Betsy Dollar, is telling us about the Edwards Place Fine Art Fair, happening Saturday, September 19th from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. and Sunday, September 20th from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. This will be the 38th year the event has taken place.
Betsy Dollar:
Right.
Melissa Snider:
Is there anything new or different about this year's event or what have you learned over the years?
Betsy Dollar:
This is the first event that I experienced when I joined the Art Association 15 years ago. So it has changed a little bit, but at the same time it is such a well-oiled machine. We pretty much just let it happen. You know, the vendors change from year to year, but most of the other pieces pretty much stay the same. We always have the book sale, we always have the live music, we always have food. Edwards Place is always open in some capacity for historic tours. We have a kids area where there are games and art activities in addition to the demonstrations, but it's mostly about the tents filled with really interesting art that you can buy and take home. People tell me that they're so panicked about buying art. People always ask me, how do you buy art? What do you do? First of all, the chance that buy a piece that is going to be worth millions in 20 years is probably pretty small. So the real key to buying art, especially if you're not a collector and running off to Christie's to buy something at auction, is to buy something you love. So no matter what it is, you have to ask yourself, do I want to wake up every morning and look at this thing and will it make me happy or will it satisfy me in some way or will it make me think? will it generate a positive response that I want to live with? And if you really want to live with this piece, then you should buy it, whether it matches your sofa or not. Really the important thing is that you're investing in it for yourself to fulfill some vision or emotional response that you have to this, whether it's a landscape and it reminds you of a favorite place or it's completely abstract and it gives you a specific feeling, whatever it may be. is you have to like it and you have to want to live with it because if you're investing in it, then it's going to wind up on your wall.
Melissa Snider:
Yeah, that's great advice. Great place to learn and get inspired. Exactly.
Betsy Dollar:
Well, I mean, so the fair itself is free and open to the public. I mean, the only costs are if you want to buy some art or buy some used books or buy some food. Everything else is completely free. So you can enjoy. And if you're an artist yourself and you want to get ideas, this is where it happens. You go look at a lot of different things. And I'm not saying that you're there to copy it. You're there to get inspired and see what various techniques may be out there and that kind of thing. The artists are really good about answering questions about how they do certain things. That's always interesting. to figure out how they work. And one of the greater challenges of an art fair right now is to not have an all jewelry show. More people who make jewelry apply and I usually try to keep some kind of balance of other things, whether it's painting or photography or woodwork or fibers or glass, whatever it may be, so that it's not all jewelry. There's some amazing jewelry and there's some amazing artisans out there, but I try to keep a good mix going.
Melissa Snider:
Yeah. So what is your favorite feature of the art fair?
Betsy Dollar:
I really like going from booth to booth and for artists who have come back year after year to see how their work has changed, what's new. The problem with being an artist who does art fairs is you can easily get pigeonholed. So if you try to do something new, people are like, why aren't you doing this? is what you do. So often they'll do their standard thing, but then they'll try something new and start putting it out there and seeing how people respond to a change in technique or style or or whatever it is. So it's always interesting to see what's new and different for people that I'm familiar with. And then for the newbies, it's always interesting to see the work in person, because when it's judged, it's all from computer images. particularly with 3D work, it's really nice to see it in person. So that's exciting and just getting to know who the artists are and what they're about is interesting. So yeah, that's my favorite part. But I know a lot of people just like the idea of wandering around listening to the live music, you know, so.
Melissa Snider:
Something for everyone.
Betsy Dollar:
Something for everyone. For all ages, too. I mean, we don't have a specific kids tent where they can buy art. Some art fairs do that, but we've tried a couple different things for kids other than a play area and a making art area, but we don't have an art sales area specifically for kids. But a lot of the artists try to have some lower price items that kids can purchase. And I create a scavenger hunt for slightly older kids every year so that they have to go to different booths and learn about a medium and find out who does what so that, they might be looking for a ceramics artist and they might be looking for a fiber artist, but maybe a fiber artist who just does batik, as opposed to a weaver or something like that. So that gets them into the tents and really looking at what's in the different tents. And then we also have our mascot is a buffalo because we have a buffalo sculpture in our courtyard. And so we have a bunch of little beanie baby buffaloes that we hide around the campus for the younger kids to find. So their hunt is a buffalo hunt. They mark on the map where they find all the buffaloes that can win a prize. So that also keeps kids moving around the campus.
Melissa Snider:
Where can they find the maps for the scavenger hunts?
Betsy Dollar:
We have the maps at the information tent and the kids can either look up which medium they're looking for in the description of the artist. So that's for the older kids to do the scavenger hunt and the younger kids just mark on the map where they find the buffaloes.
Melissa Snider:
This is Community Voices on 91.9 NPR Illinois. Betsy Dollar, executive director of the Springfield Art Association, is filling us in on the Edwards Place Fine Art Fair, happening the third weekend of September. For someone who's never been before, what would you say is the best reason to go?
Betsy Dollar:
Well, it really depends on how much you like art. But I would say, yeah, just to experience it, to experience the campus, to experience the artists, And certainly if you're a book lover, I wouldn't miss it. So yeah, it's kind of an interesting variety of things. It can be a full day if you want to really come out and look at all the art and look at all the books and see what's going on in Edward's place and watch some of the demonstrations and play some of the games. You'll have a pretty much full day out there.
Melissa Snider:
Plenty to do.
Betsy Dollar:
Yes, exactly.
Melissa Snider:
What does it mean to have an event like this here in Springfield and bring artists and the community together?
Betsy Dollar:
It certainly fulfills our mission of bringing art to the public and bringing the public to artists. There are basically three bigger art fairs in Springfield, one in the spring and two in the fall. But I think there's room for all of us because we have some of the same artists and we have some different ones and people love to look whether they actually buy anything or not. So I think it continues to inform people about the visual arts to come and see what's going on. And it sort of breaks down the myth that art is an exclusive, expensive activity. Now you can come out for free, you can look to your heart's desire and not spend a penny, but you can still learn a lot just by being there. And so it sort of fulfills an education mission as well as building community with artists. So I think we work very hard at the Art Association to keep the visual arts accessible and in the forefront so that people know that there are always art activities available within our community, whether it's taking a class or taking a workshop or coming to a free lecture or anything. like that. Awesome.
Melissa Snider:
Let's talk about the event one more time. When and where?
Betsy Dollar:
Okay, so it's on the grounds of the Springfield Art Association, which is at 700 North 4th Street. If you want to familiarize yourself with the artists in advance, they are on our website. Each of them are listed with, if they have websites, then we can link to them, you know, through that. So you can see some of it in advance. Our website is springfieldart.org. So all the information is there. So it's 10 to 5 on Saturday and 10 to 4 on Sunday. It is a rain or shine event. Mother Nature usually sprinkles on us a little Sometimes she's more harsh than others. If it's cloudy, just bring an umbrella. We hope to see you out there on our grounds.
Melissa Snider:
Awesome. Thank you so much, Betsy.
Betsy Dollar:
You're welcome.
Melissa Snider:
Once again, Betsy Dollar of the Springfield Art Association. Community Voices is events you might have missed and conversations with neighbors, artists, and area business people. You can suggest a guest or comment at communityvoices@nprillinois.org. Get to know your neighbors with Community Voices at noon, 10 p.m., and on demand at nprillinois.org.
