By Bella Erakko

One can imagine the opening scene of a movie … beautiful spring day, art lovers strolling through a park delighting in the artists’ booths, savoring their creative outpouring of paintings, pottery, jewelry, photography. It seems that, like mushrooms, art has just sprung up … magically.

But seasoned artists at the Alliance Art Gallery laughingly share the REAL story which usually includes jury submission fees, exhibition fees, shipping constrictions, travel and hotel, and WEATHER! Ann Titus explains behind-the-scenes ropes of being an active artist. “Generally, there are two types of exhibitions: outdoor juried shows and gallery shows. To enter a juried show, the artist must submit high-resolution photos to a site where a selected juror or group of jurors will select the artists who may submit work. It can cost the artist ten to thirty dollars or more to apply. Most artists use centralizing websites. They can browse all of the upcoming shows, decide which best match their artwork, and apply.”

Being accepted into a show feels very satisfying for the artist, but now they are faced with creating new material, sometimes to fit an exhibition theme. Outdoor booth fees can range from a hundred to close to a thousand dollars. The artist has to own, transport, and set up their booth or, if it is a gallery exhibition, hand deliver or ship in approved containers, paying for shipping both ways.

On that beautiful day when art lovers arrive, they don’t know that Deborah Scoggin-Myers lives on a cattle ranch and loves to paint cows, or that Dennis Babbitt is willing to stand in almost freezing wet weather, facing off coyotes, raccoons and deer because he loves outdoor painting. They don’t know that Pat Kerns will jump in a car in her bathrobe chasing sunrise clouds, that Steve Ryan keeps his kiln in the laundry room leaving a six-inch aisle to his washing machine, or that Ann Titus uses her long upstairs hallway as her viewing venue for her evolving pieces of quilt art.

No. But at the Alliance Art Gallery, the Hannibal Arts Council, QFest in Quincy, or St. Louis, the artist and the art lover finally meet. They learn those stories as part of a shared art experience. And often, they are the first-response rescuers when weather suddenly goes south.

Thunderstorms and wind are the bane of outdoor exhibits. One year, at Hannibal’s Folklife Festival, ferocious winds swept a pottery exhibit to the ground leaving nothing but shards. Often, visitors and artists grab hold of exhibit booth poles to keep even the best weighted tents from blowing away.

If the movie were ending, the closing scene might show the one thing that makes all of this happen. Someone falls in love with a painting, a pot, a necklace, a shawl, and grateful for its beauty and creativity, takes it home.