Art House to showcase
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Rain pattered down from the blue tarp of the tent protecting Hannibal artist Pat Kerns as she smudged a streak of red pastel onto the page before her; delicately she recreated a 2D rendering of the radishes and white onions from the Fulton Farmers' Market during the Plein Air event Saturday. However, she didn't plan on eating the radishes after her art piece was done.
"I won't eat them because I don't like them and my husband won't eat them because they don't like him," Kerns said.
Kerns, similar to other artists this weekend, returned to Fulton for the second annual Plein Air event hosted by the non-profit gallery Art House. Today is the last day of the four day event and will close this year's Plein Air with an open Wet Paint Reception at Art House from 6-8 p.m., which will feature jazz music, food and an awards presentation.
Fifty artists with varying levels of experience created permanent reminders of Callaway County's sights, which those that haven't sold after this evening's reception, will hang in the Plein Air Exhibit at Art House until the end of June. Art House will receive 35 percent of each sale to help its funding.
Artists were invited to create their masterpieces at several different sites in the county including Steedman Vinyards, the Brick District and Alpacas D'Auxvasse. However, they were welcome to work on any public property or public property with landowner permission.
At Plein Art's first year in Fulton, artists were given a map of Callaway County with a legend and sent off to find venues suggested by Art House, Art House Board Member Danielle Warren said. After following up last year's event with a survey the board members at Art House learned that the artists would have liked more group events where they could interact and paint with each other, so this year, on top of suggesting scenic spots, Art House created several group events artists could join to paint together, Warren said.
This year's Plein Air included public events where the public was able to watch the artists work and ask questions about the artists' process.
"It's a good way to get art out into the community," Warren said.
However the event also encouraged tourism throughout the county and drove business by bringing in people from various parts of the state to explore the Mid-Missouri county, Warren said. Last year's event sold $9,000 worth of art, said Art House Curator-Director Brian Mahieu.
"The arts drive economic development and renewal," Mahieu said.
Artist Marty Coulter, a Washington, Mo. native who has been painting for 50 years was filling his painting of Court Street with the bustle of cars and foot-traffic. As a a veteran for art events, including Fulton's Plein Air, he was disappointed with the Midwest.
"The unfortunate part about Midwest is they're not supportive of the arts," artist Marty Coulter, a Washington, Mo. native who has been painting for 50 years, said. "They are everywhere else, but not here."
Mahieu hopes this event will change that by carrying on the Brick District's concentration for arts and culture.
"En plein air," which is a French expression meaning "in the open air," challenges artists to test their skill outside of the studio while exposed to the natural elements. This weekend artists were exposed to temperamental rain showers and armies of summer insects which sometimes forced artists to strategically place their easels under awnings and seek refuge indoors.
Part of the reason Mahieu wanted to bring Plein Air to Fulton was to get artists out of their studios and into the elements as it creates aesthetic features of what the artist is seeing and feeling in that space, he said. Some landscape artists resort to taking photos of a landscape and then returning to their studio to paint it, Mahieu said, but that doesn't encapsulate every aspect of the scene.
"The camera doesn't see like the human eye," Mahieu said. "As artists our job is to experience life and communicate our experience with what we're painting."