Though many artists will always prefer the climate-controlled convenience of the studio, a growing number of painters are taking their canvases outdoors. Credit the rising popularity of plein air painting in part to the old-fashioned allure of nature—there’s just something romantic about the notion of setting up an easel under the open skies—but for professional painters there’s also real money to be made outside, thanks to the boom of organized plein air festivals over the last decade or so. Wisconsin in particular has become a hub for these events, offering more than 40 of them, more than any other state. The biggest are established festivals in Door County and Cedarburg, but Plein Air Shorewood is right behind them—not bad for an event that’s only in its second year.
A fundraiser for public art in the village, Plein Air Shorewood debuted last September, drawing 3,500 people. For this year’s event, organizers are already expecting to draw at least twice that, and they’ve expanded accordingly, adding an extra day of activities and inviting more than 60 professional plein air artists from five states to paint the village’s sights and scenes. As event co-founder Patricia Algiers notes, it’s an enticing setting for painters.
“Shorewood is very unique,” Algiers says. “It’s the most densely populated village or city in the state of Wisconsin, 1.59 miles square, 14,000 people. Oakland Avenue and Capitol Drive define the central business district. It’s on Lake Michigan, and it’s on the river, so we have water. We have gorgeous homes. We have Hubbard Park. We have Estabrook Park, with waterfalls. There’s just so much to paint.”
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This year’s event runs Wednesday, Sept. 17 through Saturday, Sept. 20. Artists will have three days to paint whatever captures their eye, and then they’ll each submit their two best to a public viewing and sale Saturday at the Shorewood Public Library. To accommodate demand for the paintings, this year the event has added two quick paint challenges, one of Shorewood’s central business district and one of the Atwater Park lakefront, so each artist will have a total of four works for sale.
“It’s a battle against time,” Algiers says of the quick paints, “so it’s interesting to see what these artists can produce is such a short period of time. Paintings of the lake are especially popular, because the lakefront is a common denominator for so many people, not just people who live in Shorewood, so we deliberately added the lakefront quick paint this year. We wanted to give as many people as possible a reason to enjoy and purchase this art.”
The artists keep 65% of the proceeds from their sales; the rest goes to Shorewood. For a complete schedule of Plein Air Shorewood events, which this year includes a community dinner and breakfast, a Friday night block party and a number of children’s activities, visit pleinairshorewood.com.
