Venue, artists have tough time with Art Melt
Artists affiliated with Boudreaux & Thibodeaux, a block down from the Art Melt festivities at the Shaw Center for the Arts, historically have set up a few tables on the sidewalk to showcase their work, piggybacking off the popular event. This year, however, it was a no-no.
Forum 35 volunteers told David Wandell, sponsor for the weekly art lounge at the Third Street bar, the artists who set up in front of the state parking garage hadn’t paid a fee to be there. So the group picked up the tables and set up just in front of the bar, Wandell says.
The Art Melt street closure permit stretched to Florida Street. Forum 35 volunteers returned, this time with a police officer, to have the 12 artists either leave or pay a vendor fee of $50 per table.
“They never approached us about our plans or collaborating,” says Wandell, who talked the volunteers down from $600. “Literally as soon as we gave them a couple hundred dollars we didn’t see them for the rest of the evening. They gave us handwritten receipts with no contact information on it, nothing official that it was Forum 35 or Art Melt business.”
Bar manager Karen Dean says the Art Melt organizers began setting up 25-foot-tall speakers for a live band right in front of the live music venue at 5 p.m.—a detail that was never communicated to her. “I had no happy-hour business on the balcony because of it. Poor communication was obvious,” Dean says. Volunteers moved the set closer toward Convention Street and pointed the speakers away from the bar.
Dean says she was one of the neighboring business people who signed the street closure permit to allow Art Melt to occur. Will she sign the permit next year? “We want to work with everyone to make the arts and entertainment district wonderful, but this was a mess.” Erin Monroe Wesley, president of Forum 35, says she is investigating the complaints.
Meanwhile, Forum 35 officials are working on an official statement in response to the removal of a nude portrait for the Art Melt opening Friday evening, as well as the organization’s stance for future events, according to past president Jamie Griffin.
“The piece is absolutely on display for anyone who would like to see it,” Griffin says. As far as the rule on nudity in art, “We’ll make sure we address that in the statement for our position on future events,” he says. To see the photograph that triggered the controversy, click here.
