For some, the art of success is about being seen

Events like the Mulvane Mountain/Plains Art Fair are where artists can show and sell their creations. The former can be more important than the latter, Jamie Lavin, one of the nearly 80 exhibitors at the fair, said Saturday.

The 15th annual art fair got started Saturday and will continue from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today on the campus of Washburn University near Whiting Field House at S.W. 18th and Washburn Avenue.

 

Jason Hunter / The Capital-Journal

Jamie Lavin, a painter from Gardner, peers out from his booth at the Mulvane Mountain/Plains Art Fair, where he is showing and selling his mixed-media works. The fair at Washburn University wraps up today.

Admission is $5, with a $1 off coupon available for printing at www.cjonline.com or www.washburn.edu/mulvane. Children 12 and younger get in free.

While every artist might fantasize about driving home from an art fair with a cashbox full of currency and checks and not a single painting, pot or photograph left in their inventory, Lavin said just getting an opportunity to have your art seen can reap unforeseeable benefits.

Lavin, who grew up in Johnson County and lives there in Gardner, said he was showing at the Art Westport fair in Kansas City, Mo., when Kyle Garcia, owner and director of Phoenix Gallery Topeka, noticed his work.

"She walked by my booth in Westport, and she made this huge fuss," Lavin recalled.

Garcia wanted Lavin to exhibit in her gallery, which is located in the Brookwood Shopping Center.

At that initial exhibit last fall, Patrick Alexander, president and chief executive officer of Landmark Bancorp Inc. and Landmark National Bank, liked a painting Lavin had done of an Oregon Trail scene.

Alexander later approached Garcia about acquiring some art to hang in the new Landmark building west of S.W. 6th and Wanamaker Road in the Shops at RiverHill. Garcia then told the artists she represented.

"I thought anybody with a name like Landmark ought to have Kansas landmarks," Lavin said.

Without knowing whether Alexander would buy it, Lavin decided to create a 10-by-4-foot mural painting of Monument Rock in western Kansas.

Lavin said he had seen images of the chalk bluff located in Gove County in a book by landscape photographer Steve Mulligan and decided to check it out on a return trip from Denver last December.

"When I got to Monument Rock, it was the same feeling I got when I got to the south rim of the Grand Canyon," Lavin said.

His other thought was, "This would make a fabulous painting."

Well, Alexander liked the finished work and bought it for the bank, where it hangs along with another of Lavin's paintings.

The project inspired a "Landmarks" exhibit at Phoenix Gallery, which continues through June, and it also led to a commission to create a painting of the Great Overland Station for that North Topeka railroad museum.

It pays to be seen, Lavin said, adding the Mulvane Mountain/Plains Art Fair is a good place for an artist to be noticed because patrons expect quality.

"This is a tough show to get in. The standards are high. You don't take this one for granted," said Lavin, who is showing this year at his third Mulvane art fair but said he didn't make the cut one year.

Lavin who exhibits at art shows throughout the country, added, "All the people who show on the national circuit hear about this show and want to show here."

Karen Shi, from San Jose, Calif., said the Mulvane fair was recommended to her by Topekans who had bought her hand-sewn embroidery art from her in California.

It proved a profitable decision for Shi, whose booth had several ribbons indicating sales to air fair patrons who, by pledging to purchase a certain dollar amount of art, got first crack at shopping Saturday before the gates were opened to the general public.

Another first-time exhibitor, Hank Barnes, of Heirloom Stained Glass Studio, Rogers, Ark., said the reason he applied to get in the show was "I heard it was a quality show."

Barnes, who also had some patron purchase ribbons displayed, said the show was living up to its billing.

The crowds were big Saturday, taking advantage of the break in rainy weather, although Lavin said Mulvane art fair patrons turn out rain or shine.

"The most pieces I've ever sold at the Mulvane was in a downpour," he said.

"People come here to shop and are very serious about it," he said.

Bill Blankenship can be reached at (785) 295-1284 or bill.blankenship@cjonline.com.

  Artist Jamie Lavin speaks to Phoenix Gallery Topeka grant writer, Lisa Kaney, and owner Kyle Garcia, while painting at the gallery .

 

 

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