This weekend I went to Clayton for the St. Louis Art Fair. I was expecting big canvases and sculptures but what it actually turned out to be was lines of big white tents full of countless artists’ work. From ceramic pieces to woven glass, two streets were crisscrossed occupied by about 75 tents. I took some pictures of the art to rate favorite to least. 

Gallery • 4 Photos

The first piece I’m going to talk about is the mixed-media pieces by Sharon Spillar. Spillar is a mixed-media artist from St. Louis. She has her own studio named “ Spillar Studios, LLC”. Spillar says, “I am inspired by views and reactions to places and spaces from both imagined and actual experience; such as a body of water, a wild storm, a vivid dream. These works are spontaneous reactions to memories and feelings from my life. My images are mapped with marks, lines and color, both expressive and linear. Color and line are essential in the communication of my work. After the painting is completed, I add a 1/8” thick layer of UV infused Resin. This gives my work another dimension by adding reflections of the outside world to the work.” (http://www.spillarstudios.com/about) I liked these particular pieces better than the other mixed-media ones because they looked more creative. It’s really just splattering some paint on the canvas but it looks like its trying to be something and I thought they were really cool. The pieces looked like they belonged in a modern-designed living room of a really nice house. 

My favorite piece, however, was not in a tent at all. I found it just sitting on the ground leaning against a chair on the street. It was a painting  with a man’s head and the quote “We meet ourselves time and again in a thousand disguises on the path to life.” This one was my favorite because the quote really made me think about what it means, like we are always evolving into something new and we meet versions of ourselves throughout our lifetime. It also has different types of objects and animals on it showing the depth of the quote. 

The next piece was by Scott Gamble who works with glass. He had a variety of pots and vases made of glass. Gamble is from Denver, Colorado. In a video he says he loves to experiment with the glass and the colors to see what looks good with what and how he can make it. The way they were designed in color really stood out to me. Some of them look like the colors are melting together and I thought that was really cool. It looked like something you have seen in a fancy restaurant. I couldn’t help but wonder how he got the glass to curve into the vase shape and how to get the color to mix into it like it was. 

An artist that I thought was a little strange was Brianna Martray, who did drawings and pastels. Martray is from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Her website says, “Brianna is a working artist living in Pittsburgh, PA. She has been a full-time artist since 2006, starting out as a painter before moving to sculptural work in 2009.” (http://www.briannamartray.com/). These pieces were a little odd to me. I couldn’t decide if I thought they were cool or if I was scared of them. I know it couldn’t have been easy to make them because of the curves that are shown on the big canvas on the wall and it also had to look like the canvas wasn’t bare but at the same time, I thought it was kind of bland and dark. 

Last but not least, I liked a  woven glass piece by Mark Lewanski. His website says “Mark works from his downtown studio in the charming riverside town of Portland, MI, with his wife, Mary and two children, Augustus and Ignatius with an additional studio in Lansing, MI and a gallery in Arizona. He started working with glass in 2000 and has ultimately become a creative vanguard in the field, having created hundreds of unique glass surfaces”. (https://marklewanski.com/the-artist).This one was definitely the coolest to see; the strings of glass looked like thread from far away but up close you can see each piece of glass and indentations in the glass. These pieces sold from a range of $1,000 to $24,000. Glass is fragile and hard to bend so I was very impressed on how great it looked. They reminded me of threaded blankets and bracelets. 

Overall, I thought the art show was really cool and I’m not a huge art person so it was definitely a success. The atmosphere of the whole festival was just clear and happy and it left me in a good creative mood. I encourage anyone to go if you get the chance!