Our fair city

Madison’s outdoor art festival turns 60

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Bob Krantz will never really know why there was a run on his Craftsman-style wooden furniture in 2003. But he does remember selling virtually everything he had brought to the Art Fair on the Square on Saturday. He drove home to his shop in Hartland and “re-upped” for Sunday morning. By the time the fair wrapped up that evening, his booth was bare, except for three small pieces. “I’d never seen anything like that. I even sold the desk that I work at to a lawyer that worked on the Square,” says Krantz, who has exhibited at the fair since 1986, when he won an invitational award. “I still have it on my wall. I can see it from here,” says Krantz, talking on the phone while taking a break from creating pieces for this year’s fair.

Krantz happily reports that the Art Fair on the Square is one of only seven or eight fairs he attends each year. “It’s not as much of a grind for me. Picture someone who does it every weekend, busting their butt. It’ll take a lot out of you, but I look at it as an adventure.”

It’s been a relatively lucrative adventure, too. Krantz estimates that he brings home between $6,000 and $17,000 from Madison. “You never know what your fortunes are going to be. You might have a really good day, and you might not,” he says. “Sometimes it all revolves around one or two pieces. And if you get bad weather, you can spend a lot of time and money and not get the sales.”

For Krantz, whose pieces mostly range from $500-$2,500, being a longtime vendor has led to custom orders and sales to people who need to think on it (or save up) for a year or two. By far, his biggest sellers are folding tables. He estimates that he’s sold 500 of them at the fair alone, and 2,500 altogether. “They’re the nicest TV trays you’ll ever see in your life,” says Krantz. “It ends up being my bread and butter.”

Krantz is one of many artists who credit the Art Fair on the Square with changing their art, their businesses and their lives. The fair, celebrating its 60th year of existence, is the largest fundraiser for the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. It creates a thriving arts economy, infusing cash into local businesses. It’s also a fertile scouting ground for online arts retailers, including the Madison-based Artful Home. And in many ways, the event fosters appreciation for art in the city and beyond.

Competition is stiff to land one of the coveted slots at the fair. This year, the jury appointed by MMoCA selected nearly 500 artists from a national pool of 1,411 applicants. And those artists are universally excellent, says Karin Wolf, arts administrator for the city of Madison, who served on the jury once. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever juried for in my life,” says Wolf. “It took me 24 hours and I think I was doing a minute per slide. It was too much for my head. I couldn’t handle it. How can you compare 300 potters?”

After four decades of exhibiting here, Krantz is still counting his blessings: ”I’m appreciative because not everyone who wants to get in does.”

The whole existence of Art Fair on the Square, which draws some 200,000 people downtown for a (usually) hot July weekend, destroys two prominent myths about artists — that they are starving and are introverts. In 2017, participating artists reported average sales of nearly $7,000 for the weekend, with some bringing home far more. (MMoCA charges artists for the stalls, but doesn’t keep a percentage from sales.)

“It’s my very favorite show of the year. I’m thrilled every time the jury accepts my work,” says Kim Russell, who creates stylized depictions of birds. She lived in northern Illinois when she first drove up to sell at the fair in 1981; she brought home $300. “I fell in love with Madison that weekend and could hardly wait for my husband to experience the city,” says Russell. The couple relocated to a home outside Spring Green where they worked together on a line of wooden bird sculptures and mobiles. Over the decades, Russell’s primary focus has moved from the wooden pieces to ink and acrylic drawings and prints.

Russell also sells pieces online and in shops and galleries, but says the Art Fair on the Square gives her many chances to talk to people about her art — and about birds. “I get people’s stories. This is why I depict birds, because no matter where you live, you have contact and interaction with birds.”

She says her work has evolved from talking directly to art fair visitors. “You just don’t get that feedback through shops and galleries. Just the looks on their faces tell me so much,” says Russell. She says her husband came home after a recent show in Spring Green and reenacted a customer walking right up to the wall of prints and mouthing “wow!” Russell remembers having a gallery owner call her to tell her to come pick up a drawing that hadn’t sold. “The gallery owner said, ‘I think you should take this back; nobody even looked at it.’” Russell fetched it and brought it to MMoCA’s Holiday Art Fair. “People were fighting over it,” says Russell. “Three different people wanted that drawing. That was a false perception of that work. I would never have known without showing it.”

Artists want their work to be seen, bought and appreciated. A willing accomplice in that endeavor is the Madison-based international e-commerce site Artful Home, an art fair sponsor that has flourished as an online art gallery and retailer since it was launched as The Guild in 1985. Lisa Bayne, a clothing designer who spent her early career in specialty retail and became CEO in 2008, fully understands the benefit of old-fashioned art fair vending. “I have attended almost every year since I joined Artful Home, and I will be there this year,” says Bayne. “Our company delivers breakfast to the artists on Sunday morning. They are very happy to have somebody feed them.”

Bayne says she and her staff welcome the chance to meet and talk to the artists represented by Artful Home. “And we do scout at the fair and at fairs around the country,” adds Bayne. Sally de Broux, director of merchandising for the company, confirms that Artful Home discovered woodworker James Pearce, automotive sheet metal artist Anthony Hansen, and jewelry artist Dagmara Costello at the Madison event. “Discovering a new artist at an art fair is deeply satisfying,” says de Broux. “It’s creative matchmaking. We fall in love a little, or a lot, and we can’t wait to show our customer base what we’ve found for them.”

Bayne says making a living as an artist in this day and age means taking every opportunity to get your work in front of the public, especially because the marketplace has been changing and shifting. “Many galleries and/or small stores that sold their work have closed; it’s been harder and harder for small regional galleries to stay open,” says Bayne. “At the same time all of us have been more involved with satisfying different parts of our lives online.” Artists are showing portfolios and selling work from their own websites and using curated sites like Artful Home and Etsy to reach national and international audiences. Balancing a select number of lucrative art fairs with an online presence can prevent burnout. “What I’m hearing is that there is not one perfect solution — that there are several options,” says Bayne. “Many artists say they can stop if they choose to stop, or they’ve been able to quit their day jobs.”

One artist who connected with Artful Home at the Madison fair is Patricia McCleery, a Michigan-based metalworker who creates “primitive meets urban zen” sculptural jewelry. McCleery, now 67, has been a full-time artist since she was 32, apprenticing with Charles Loloma, a Hopi Indian known as one of the country’s most influential Native metalworkers. McCleery has been exhibiting here for the last five years, and learned about Artful Home because of the staff’s visits to booths and the meals that the company hosts. After conversations that started at the fair, McCleery developed a line of jewelry that was added to Artful Home last November. She’s shipped more than 100 pieces already. This has an impact on her business, too. She used to start making pieces six weeks in advance of a major fair like Art Fair on the Square. Now, with the added orders, she needs to start six months in advance.

And McCleery made another important connection at the Art Fair on the Square. After MMoCA gift shop director Leslie Genszler visited her booth, the museum’s gift shop began selling her pieces: “She picked up a collection that has done very well,” says McCleery. “I have had my business blossom.”

“Art tourism” can be a significant economic driver, especially for a fair as well-attended as the Art Fair on the Square. Erika Monroe-Kane, director of communications at MMoCA, says in 2008 the museum commissioned Chamberlain Research Associates Inc. to look at the economic impact of the fair. “$25 million went into the community beyond what was spent at the fair,” says Monroe-Kane. “So that doesn’t include what the artists make, and that doesn’t include what the museum makes in brat sales, etc.” The study found that the fair was boosting incomes for hotels, restaurants, coffee houses, music venues and parking ramps. And Monroe-Kane points out that the study was done more than 10 years ago. “We have not seen a decrease in the amount of people that come, so we might be looking at 10 years of inflation.”

Karin Wolf says the fair is “incredible for tourism.” She takes cranky phone calls about arts events all the time, but she’s never heard a bad word about the Art Fair on the Square. In fact, she gets mis-directed praise. “I get these calls: ‘You did a great job. It’s my favorite thing all summer. Thank you.’” The event brings so many people to downtown, says Wolf, that it transforms the city. “I love that it’s just this draw, this magnet, this summer ritual. It’s one of our icons.”

Monroe-Kane says the benefits extend far beyond the significant funds raised from concessions, which support MMoCA’s robust education and outreach programs and keep the museum free and open year round. The art fair is creating a culture of art appreciation that extends deep into the community. “You are supporting the arts and helping people to engage with art. You’re doing it in a low-stress comfort way. It’s not intimidating to come to Art Fair on the Square,” says Monroe-Kane. “You’re really creating situations where people can learn about art in a way that’s comfortable for them. Maybe walking into the museum isn’t something that fits them. But they may come down here and talk to 20 artists in the course of a day and buy something that’s meaningful to them and take it home.”

Natalie Browne-Gutnik, who along with her husband, Martin Gutnik, exhibits large painted floor and wall cloths at the Art Fair on the Square, looks forward to the event as a way to stay in touch with her audience. The late-career artist has been coming to the fair since she was a 17-year-old UW-Madison student. And now the visits fuel her creative vision.“It’s my way of connecting as an artist,” says Browne-Gutnik. “We’re all very solitary in what we do, and at some point most of us get out of this solitary-ness by communicating with other people and showing our art.”

Bayne says the reason she and 200,000 others still brave crowds and hot weather to visit booths around the Square is because of this direct connection. “People love to be able to meet the artists and hear their stories,” says Bayne. “I often say that many of us fall in love with the artwork, but the story — whether it’s through meeting the artist or reading a story on a site like ours — is what helps complete the experience. I think there’s some pride and interest when you purchase a piece of work and you know the story, and you’ve met the artist. When someone comes to your home that story is part of what you want to convey to visitors.” 

This story is part of a series on the 60th anniversary of the Art Fair on the Square. You can access the full series here.