Lower turnout for fine arts show as artists reunite with customers

Nov. 29—MANKATO — Bill Sumner has been selling his and his wife's art since about 1970, when setting up a booth meant making your own canopy, rolling out a picnic blanket and spreading out your wares.

Yet the full-time artist was left nearly speechless Sunday when a customer who has bought dozens of his pieces walked up and, within minutes, said she would buy the most expensive one — $925 — that he had on display.

Dawn Ulrich-Spitzer said she came to this year's Goldsmiths Reunion Fine Arts Festival specifically to buy one of the Sumners' works. Working out of Princeton as Bear Paw Paperworks, the couple creates nature tableaus and detailed portraits of animals that resemble paintings but are made from needle-felted wool and handmade paper.

"I have a cabin up in northern Minnesota where I have a whole upstairs that is called 'Bill Sumner's Gallery,'" Ulrich-Spitzer said, adding that she thinks Sumner's work is vibrant and unique. The Mankato resident guesses she has bought 40 or so pieces from the Sumners over the past two decades.

Sumner has been part of the show for five years after Tom Bliese, a co-director with his daughter Sacha, talked to him about joining. Nearly 50 artists participated this weekend after a selective process by which judges decide whose work qualifies.

Relationships like those between Sumner and several of his customers are the result of learning experiences that art shows provide to both sellers and buyers, Bliese said.

"Artists are not always real good at telling people what they do, how they do it, so this gives them the chance to do that interchange," he said. "And it gives all the people who are looking for something a chance to understand how that gets done, why is it so expensive, how many hours are actually put into doing this."

As Mankato's artistic community has grown more cohesive and robust since the turn of the century, Bliese said, the GSR show — founded in 2003 — has grown alongside it.

It began with three artists sharing work and now has grown to four dozen. The number of attendees rose to a steady 2,000 before the pandemic.

But following last year's replacement of the physical show with a website, the number of customers this weekend was significantly lower than average, according to Bliese and multiple artists.

The co-director said the lower turnout may be due to higher numbers of new COVID-19 cases in Minnesota and the choice by families to stay in small pods following holiday gatherings. The show was moved to the weekend following Black Friday because December rent for the Mayo Clinic Health System Event Center rose beyond what the organizing nonprofit could afford.

A positive outcome of the pandemic, however, is the webpage ShopART Midwest, where buyers can connect with artists outside of the event's two-day timeframe.

"It began mostly as a chance to sell here," Bliese said. "As more and more artists are getting more comfortable doing things online, this is a great place to make that initial connection."

Making a living

Sumner said he and his wife, both 74, make their living by selling work at about 30 weekend art shows a year, primarily in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

He doesn't sleep much the night before a show because he's anxious to set up their booth.

The couple's combined output ranges from 400 to 600 pieces a year. They have chosen that prolific lifestyle at the expense of vacations and many leisure activities, though he said they're now beginning to slow down.

Many of his friends have quit because touring shows on the weekends is so time-consuming.

"We spend most of our (waking) hours working on art," he said. "That's where the passion lies."

"We don't keep track of time per each piece," he added. "We work 10 to 12 hours a day at it, and whatever we can get created in that period, we do."

Thomas Prahl, an artist born near Lake Crystal who this year finished his music education degree at Gustavus Adolphus College, said he isn't sure whether his pottery business could ever be his sole income source.

The 22-year-old is an artist-in-residence at the Arts Center of St. Peter, where he teaches beginner ceramics and uses a communal workspace, in addition to running his business under the name Thomas' Alleged Goods. He soon plans to teach music to elementary schoolers.

"Really my long-term goal is to have those three things make up my career and hobby time," he said.

The decision to sell his creations in high school happened essentially by accident, he said.

"It was kinda like, 'Wow, I'm making lots of pots, and I have no clue what to do with them.' And I don't envision making fewer pots any time soon, so I guess I have to figure out what to do now," he said.

A personal shortage of plant pots during college led him to the studio in St. Peter where he could make his own pottery. Now he sets up mugs, plates and bowls at three events a month along with selling them at two locations.

In addition to visual arts, such as jewelry, pottery and paintings, the show includes live music and a Book-Nook, where five authors sold work this weekend.

Kathryn Sullivan, who writes novels and short stories of science-fiction and fantasy, said she recently retired after 33 years as a Winona State University librarian. She drove from Winona to sell several books, one of which is a novel whose first draft she finished as a teenager.

St. Peter resident Michelle Kaisersatt was at the show for the first time to sell the only book she has written after years spent crafting ceramic urns and vases.

The self-published book is a hypothetical conversation between her grandchildren and her late husband, Dale. The pages show photos of scenic landscapes the couple visited together and written passages telling how the presence of lost loved ones can be felt in nature.

She noted how the pandemic has solidified grief as an ever-present concept. Her husband died in 2017, but she didn't start writing until May 2020. The book was published in January.

"Many people have had that experience, where they feel like their loved one is connecting with them and they don't get that validation," she said. "This is something that just says yes, you're not imagining things. This is real."