Art Off Pike revitalizes urban arts fair
For this year’s Art Off Pike, a group of about 30 creatives and business professionals will converge to bring artists, musicians and street performers together for the ninth annual urban arts fair. “It started as this grassroots arts festival, and what has happened is it’s situated on this precipice of needing a little bit of new life and energy breathed into it,” says Cate Yellig, arts director of the City of Covington. “We’re looking at really having a feast for the senses. We’d love to have street performers and dancers and [make it] a little more multidisciplinary so that we can distinguish it from a lot of your other art fairs.” Yellig says about 50 volunteers from the community run the event each year, so the tight-knit ties are particularly unique and inviting. “It’s definitely embracing emerging artists and people who live in your urban environment,” Yellig says. “Covington is a city that’s really trying to embrace the arts as economic development. And by showcasing the talent found here locally and providing them the opportunity to sell their work to a crowd where they get 100 percent back for themselves—this is a really great visibility opportunity.” Hub +Weber Architects’ Jim Guthrie, who served as last year’s chair and who is on the board this year, says he appreciates the diversity of the art, in addition to its accessibility. “Last year, there was an artist who did sketches and doodles of anything you wanted,” Guthrie says. “It made art very important. If you could have a piece of art reflecting anything you wanted, what would it be? I struggled for hours to come up with something worthy.” Organizers are currently accepting entries through the Call for Artists, and Yellig says the more varied, the better. “We want 2D and 3D, mixed media, crafts—we’d love performers and musicians, and if there’s a glassblower that has a mobile truck of some sort—we really want to kind of have this high-level of quality but also affordability with the arts or with the offerings for each artist,” Yellig says. “But we also want to have a really diverse group of artists as well because that makes it more attractive to people coming to the festival.” Do Good: • Volunteer at this year's festival. • Submit your work by applying through the Call for Artists. • Like the event on Facebook, and mark your calendar to attend September 29. By Brittany York Brittany York is a professor of English composition at the University of Cincinnati. She also edits the For Good section of SoapboxMedia.
