Ann Arbor welcomes nearly 1,000 artists for annual Art Fair 

Nearly 1,000 artists from around the country displayed their work at the Ann Arbor Art Fair, beginning Thursday morning and concluding Saturday evening. Residents and visitors alike flocked to downtown Ann Arbor to browse the artwork, as well as booths from various local organizations and food vendors. 

The Ann Arbor Art Fair is made up of three geographically connected fairs — the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair, The Original; The Guild’s Ann Arbor Summer Art Fair; and Ann Arbor State Street District Art Fair — which occur simultaneously. In preparation for the fair, organizers closed roads to motorized vehicles and temporarily reopened a portion of Main Street that is currently under construction. 

In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Ann Arbor resident Kenneth McDermott said he attended the art fair hoping to see artists with a variety of unique styles.

“(I expected) that I would see some really unique designs and artists who really kind of bring their own personal flair to particular styles of art,” McDermott said.

One of this year’s vendors, Virginia-based artist Muthulakshmi Anu Narasimhan, paints portraits. Narasimhan said her inspiration comes from a life spent living around the world — India, the Netherlands, the United States, Malaysia — and her interest in seeing the beauty in people.

“I’m kind of a nomad in a way,” Narasimhan said. “So when you move around or you feel like you don’t belong, what you do is you look for things to make your own. So then that’s what I do. I show everybody’s beauty around the world.”

Narasimhan chose paintings to display at the art fair based on their sentimental value and personal connection.

“They all have a story that is very close to my heart,” Narasimhan said. “Something every single one of them can relate to. I feel like hopefully people will get the intention behind (the paintings) and when they see the paintings they will be drawn to the emotional background.”

Minnesota-based artist Coreen Johnson’s oil paintings depict scenes from her travels around the country from empty streets to serene lakes. Johnson said she tried to strike a balance between urban and rural scenes when deciding which pieces to bring to the art fair.

“Sometimes your urban scenes are very place-specific, but it’s a bit of a guessing game,” Johnson said. “You just try to have a broader mix of rural and urban … Different people like different things, so I just brought what I brought and I hope for the best.”

St. Louis-based artist Tony Cray constructed his booth with bold glass designs set against a backdrop of cheery yellow and white walls. Cray said the booth’s design was meant to be durable in order to protect his artwork, while also creating a polished environment similar to a professional gallery.

“I need something that’s durable for all of my fragile wear,” Cray said. “Although the weather’s perfect right now, in another hour or two might not be, so I need something that’s substantial in the wind and the rain and with the crowd, so I like a display that is like a gallery space.”

Rackham student Tyler Dunston was selected by the Guild of Artists and Artisans to display his oil paintings at the Summer Art Fair as part of the Emerging Artist Program. Dunston said while his pieces are meant to recall landscapes, they are abstracted so that their resemblance to landscapes isn’t immediately obvious.

“Most of them, it was making an abstraction that kind of evokes a landscape, so it’s very hard immediately to tell that there is a landscape there,” Dunston said. “There might be something that is suggestive of a horizon line for example, or like a landmass or the ocean, but kind of trying to make it a bit difficult almost to make that out.”

Rising Art & Design senior Emily Mann was also selected for EAP. Her booth displayed a variety of prints — including ones made by lithograph and woodblock — with a red, white and black color scheme. Mann said in preparation for and throughout the fair, she learned how to place her artwork within her booth in a way that draws people’s attention.

“Maybe things with more detail can go on the table where they’re going to come and look at it more close, and the things that are bolder can stand up and grab their attention to get them to come over,” Mann said.

Mann said she explores geometric concepts and applies them to her work to translate her world into a two dimensional piece.

“I am interested in shapes, geometry, perspective, the translation of 3D space onto a 2D frame and then how that can be utilized to sort of talk about personal relationships, interconnectedness and the uncertainties of the future,” Mann said. “Often I use perspective or a vertical composition that sort of goes down from the top down as a sort of timeline to show something changing, and it’s sort of a metaphorical way to talk about those things.”

Summer News Editor Abigail VanderMolen can be reached at vabigail@umich.edu.