After canceling in 2020 due to COVID-19 concerns, Park Forest Art Fair returns to the village’s downtown area.
Tall Grass Arts Association presents the 65th annual outdoor event Sept. 18-19 with nearly 60 artists exhibiting media such as jewelry, painting, photography, printmaking, stitchery and 3D artwork including sculpture, wood, metal and fabric arts.
“We’re really excited to be back in person,” said Janet Muchnik, chairwoman of Park Forest Art Fair for approximately a decade, who collaborates with volunteers including Tall Grass Arts Association president Diana Cruz to organize the event.
“Of course there’s still caution with the increase in the Delta variant. We’re going to have a few more protocols to follow than we were counting on about a month ago but we’re very excited to be back in person.
“The artists can require masks in their space. They also can limit the number of people plus we’ll give the artists a ton of room and hand sanitizer bottles. If artists wish to ask people to wash their hands before they handle prints, the artists may do so.”
Part of what has made Park Forest Art Fair popular is the interaction with artists, some of whom have exhibited for almost 40 years.
“Park Forest has a history of the public talking to the artists, which the artists love and so they respond. We’ve had people talk to artists they weren’t planning to buy anything from but they’re just intrigued by the artist’s work so they’ll stay and talk to the artist,” said Muchnik of Olympia Fields.
“For most people who come to an art fair, the issue is: ‘Is the art good?’ and I think the artwork in Park Forest is consistently good. The second thing is that it is an art fair in which the artists want to talk to the public and the public wants to talk to the artists.”
Artists hail from as close as Chicago Heights, Dolton, Flossmoor, Frankfort, Glenwood, Hazel Crest, Homewood, Joliet, Lansing, Lockport, Oak Forest, Olympia Fields, Park Forest, Peotone and Richton Park to as far as Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin.
The fair’s 19 new artists include mostly self-taught glassblower Art Ciccotti, whose Ciccotti Art Glass studio is in Iowa; Chicago’s Sylvia Cook, designer for C Syl Collections’ handcrafted polymer clay jewelry; and the self-taught namesake of Jay Rasmussen Photo Gallery in Maplewood, Minnesota.
“It’s a little more varied this year,” said Muchnik about the Park Forest Art Fair, which also features handmade, old-fashioned rocking chairs and stained glass.
Park Forest Art Fair traditionally gives out two-dimensional, 3D and jewelry prizes along with two Judge’s Choice awards. A People’s Choice Award has been added for this year’s event, which organizers bill as “the second-oldest juried art fair in the Chicagoland region.”
“We’re going to give little forms for people to fill out and pick out what the public would give a prize to,” Muchnik said.
“It’s the first time we’ve ever done that. We’ll see how it goes. We just thought it would be a fun thing to do.”
Tall Grass Arts Association Gallery, which typically is closed Sundays, is open during both days of Park Forest Art Fair so attendees may view the free exhibit Reunion 2021, which closes Sept. 19.
“Several of the fair’s new artists are also in the gallery show,” Muchnik said.
“This is the annual juried artists show in the gallery, which means it’s not on a theme. Anybody who shows in it has to have been a juried artist through Tall Grass’ jurying process. They can show one work but it has to be a new work. It can’t have been shown in the gallery before.
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“It’s a real combination of all the different art forms — two-dimensional, three-dimensional, painting, pastels, photography, jewelry, everything.”
In addition to artists, Park Forest Art Fair features vendors including food trucks All-Out Smoke Pit and On the Pull Up Mobile Kitchen and the Kids Art Alley with varied arts and crafts and a face painter. Patchouli returns by request to perform folk music Sept. 19.
Also, the village’s free Main Street Music Fest from 11:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Sept. 18 at Park Forest Village Green, Main Street and Cunningham Drive, features Blend Acoustic, the Raíces, Andrea Billups and Cuz’n, and Doc Payne & the Payne Relief Smooth Blues Band.
Park Forest Art Fair
When: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sept. 18-19
Where: downtown Park Forest, on Main Street between Western Avenue and Orchard Drive, Park Forest
Tickets: Free
Information: 708-748-3377; tallgrassarts.org/park-forest-art-fair
Jessi Virtusio is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.