Some characters who will show up at the Palmer Park Art Fair are built of old mufflers or perhaps are fueled by 1960s era martinis. One brilliant blue woman may bring some campy friends from Greektown, and a few artists will be red hot.
The characters are part of an unusual plan for large installations and molten metal and glass installations to be interspersed into Detroit’s new art fair. On May 3 and 4, they will mingle with more traditional 10 by 10 tents housing juried artists from Detroit and around the country.
“We are reinventing the art fair, right here in Detroit,” said Mark Loeb, Palmer Park Art Fair organizer. Instead of the traditional white canopies in a line, the artists “are organically wrapped around the lake at Palmer Park.”
The Palmer Park Art Fair actually is a reincarnation of a popular art fair held near Woodward Avenue in the 1970s and 1980s. It also will be the only large outdoor juried art fair in the city of Detroit this year.
Its largest installation, a martini bar with vintage furniture, will be created by Slaw, a well-known Detroit artist. (Yes, drinks will be available, poured by and supporting the nonprofit partner People for Palmer Park.) And the bluest one is certainly the three-dimensional woman painting, one highlight from Donald Callaway, whose folk and fine art grace many a Detroit and suburban collection.
Attendees will enjoy creating their own cast metal piece, or work with tiles and create art projects with the Detroit Institute of Arts and Arts & Scraps, which will have children’s activities both days. Several artist will demonstrate their talents, notably Albert Young and Michigan Hot Glass. Young and his students will manipulate 2,000-degree glass to create objects in front of visitors and art patrons.
The Palmer Park Art Fair is being created in the nearly 300-acre regional park along Woodward Avenue between McNichols and Seven Mile roads, in a partnership with the People for Palmer Park and the Detroit Recreation Department and Integrity Shows, Loeb’s art and events company.
Besides installations, the fair also will bring together art patrons and believers in Detroit’s creative community in an unusual Art Patron program. Patrons are asked to commit to purchases ahead of the fair and may receive a limited edition Palmer Park Art Fair poster, created by Detroit muralist Hubert Massey, or tickets to a VIP party on Saturday, May 3.
Honorary chair of the patrons program is Detroit First Lady Lori Maher Duggan, who used to live in Palmer Woods. Her co-signer and key supporter is Gilda Snowden, a prominent Detroit artist and College for Creative Studies professor.
Tickets to the VIP party cost $75 and can be purchased online through PalmerParkArtFair.com. Guess will enjoy live music and FoodLab members desserts and treats, beer from Motor City Brewing and martini’s (of course). Motor City, one of a half dozen corporate sponsors, will open and operate a beer tent for the fair and select other People for Palmer Park events this summer.
Artists will sell photographs, paintings, fine jewelry, sculpture. “Everything you would expect to find at any other fine art fair, and much more,” said Loeb.
“The Art Fair’s return to Palmer Park is a dream come true. There is art for established collectors looking for distinctive work and for for those just starting out that want a wall hanging to enhance their room. Our goal is to be all inclusive. Everyone is welcome,” said Rochelle Lento, an attorney and president of People for Palmer Park.
The artists with large installations include:
- Tim Burke – Burke works as a sculpture, like his father, using found objects and pieces of machined. He makes giraffes and robots and other fantastical creatures from his home and studio on Heidelberg Street.
- Michigan Hot Glass and Albert Young. Students and professionals fromMichigan Hot Glass will demonstrate glass making and show and sell some of their best work, made at the Russell Industrial Center. Young’s museum quality pieces use a beautiful brilliant blue and copper
- Donald Callaway – Callaway’s colorful works scream joyful and some stand 6 to 7 feet tall. He creates them from his Greektown studio and has sold them at art fairs organized by Loeb for more than a decade.
- Slaw – The artists formerly known as Kevin Stanislawski creates Mad Men -like art and owns and runs the MotorCity Art Center in Midtown. Slaw’smartini bar will include his iconic 1960s art and drinks poured by the People for Palmer Park.
- Casey Westbrook and Rachel Worski, a newcomer and Detroit native, respectively, will work with people to create their own cast iron art pieces and charms. Molten metal will be poured on-site and for a fee, the pieces may be taken home once they cool.