Mart in the Park: Building Local Markets... But Whither the Arts?

Tuesday's print MDL reports that after 23 years, Madison's Art in the Park is folding. In its place -- quite literally, in Library Park, during Crazy Days on July 26 -- the Madison Christian School will sponsor "Mart in the Park," an outdoor market featuring "homemade, handmade, or homegrown items" (says Tuesday's MDL, p. 2).

Homemade, handmade, homegrown -- sounds like my kind of event! Over the past several years, Art in the Park seemed to be headed that direction anyway, with more knick-knacky crafts booths than the sort of fine arts represented at bigger arts festivals like Brookings Summer Arts Festival or Artfalls. Art in the Park was drawing fewer exhibitors and customers each year. Perhaps this mission shift to providing a venue for local production of all sorts will draw a bigger crowd and bigger revenues, not to mention more support for local industry.

But wait! It appears Madison's Art in the Park isn't the only arts festival taking a hit: I check the Artfalls link above and find an announcement that the 2008 Artfalls has been cancelled! Nuts! That event always made for a fun afternoon in Falls Park. The press release from the Artfalls board says that they faced the same pressures as Madison's event: more applications from crafters, fewer from practitioners of the fine arts:

...The event was created for the purpose of education and promotion of the arts. We already have many, many good craft fairs and fundraisers in the area. Artfalls broke away from that pattern and stood firm in the decision to present an event which would not compete with them.

Unfortunately, Artfalls, along with other long-standing art fairs, particularly in small to medium-sized communities have been struggling to attract artists whose wholesale and retail markets have greatly changed and expanded over the last several years. Artists who traditionally looked to community art fairs as a primary source of sales now have many other options for marketing their work such as specialty stors, local boutiques, galleries, national home stores, and internet retail outlets. [Suzanne Willadsen, Artfalls board president, press release, 2008.05.15]

Uh oh -- looks like I helped kill Artfalls. Darned Internet!

So Madison isn't alone in losing its arts festival. I'm glad we're taking a shot at supporting local commerce with Mart in the Park. But if even Sioux Falls, that glittering bastion of cultural diversity and progressivism, can't support a true fine arts festival, we face a real uphill battle in promoting the arts here on the prairie.