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By Woodrow J. Hinton
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Artists regularly forge something from nothing. Blank spaces are to them what children are to parents: an opportunity to shape and influence an entirely separate entity.
But Mary Mark and her fellow printmakers are an altogether different breed of artist. Not only do they begin with blank spaces, they work in negative spaces, unsure of the outcome even as they layer color upon color. They develop their images on a matrix separate from the end product, says Mark, a Columbus, Ohio-born printmaker entering her fourth year as an artist displaying her work in the highly respected Summerfair exhibition at Coney Island.
"A printmaker needs to work backward, move into the negative space; whereas, a painter uses a canvas and just paints on it," says Mark.
Mark, who lives in an 120-year-old renovated church in New Richmond, says Cincinnati, with its gallery cliques, needs Summerfair for balance and to de-dramatize art for commoners.
"Locally, there's very few venues for artists to show here in town," Mark explains. "Summerfair provides the space, the market, the people to come to see it without the gallery setting, which kind of intimidates people. And people get to meet the artist."
For children especially, art in the great wide open can be even more freeing, Mark says.
"It opens up their minds to other possibilities other than, say, Nintendo," she says. "It's a way to spark their imaginations. Not necessarily every kid is going to be an artist, but I see it only as an asset."
Another obvious asset for a printmaker is the ownership of a press. Mark, whose work can be found in 600 galleries and independently owned frame shops nationwide, owns her own 4,000-pound press. However, it wasn't always that way.
When she graduated in 1979 from Ohio University with a bachelor's degree in fine arts, she moved to Cincinnati to rent a print shop and become part of a cooperative, Tiger Lily Press. She left Tiger Lily seeking the satisfaction of single ownership. Similarly, she finds satisfaction in working creatively with her spouse: Mark's husband, a former chef, handles the wholesale aspect of Mark's work.
"I have to say that, after 15 years of marriage, it's been a definite asset that he goes away," Mark says, laughing at the thought. "When we're together more, we have more of a typical marriage."
Still, it's a relationship that affords her the space necessary to create work she describes as comfortable. "It's pleasant. People describe it as decorative. I do pay attention to market trends because I do like to pay my mortgage, but it's still very much my work.
"It's kind of a layered effect. The busyness is energy. It's all these molecules moving around, and the busyness is what it's about," she says of the interiors and still lifes she creates.
An original piece measuring 22 by 30 inches typically sells for $350. An 18-by-24 inch poster sells for $25. Mark admires famed impressionist Henri Matisse and printmaker Leonard Basin.
"I love the way Matisse uses color," she says. "People say that about my work, that it's very Matisse-like."
Mark says for women artists, there is a Catch-22 that has impeded the success she may have had in a more formal gallery setting. But again, it's been Summerfair to the rescue.
"I think I'd have done better if I'd turned out to be a man," she says. "As far as the business end, I've done well because banks are more willing to give loans to women.
"At Summerfair, I could be a gnome sitting in the back of my booth," she continues. "People aren't looking at me, they're looking at my work."
Mark will this year number among 29 Summerfair '99 artists from Greater Cincinnati. In addition, there will be 275 artists hailing from 30 states, some from as far away as Hawaii and Canada. There will be fine artists as well as performing artists, gourmet arts and a Youth Arts Fest, an area for aspiring young artists to participate in craft-related activities. There will be strolling mimes and singers, including fiddler Karen Addie and guitarist Terri Boswell, as well as accordionist John Keane and balloonist Jelly Bean.
Saturday's events feature a summer showcase comprising a "Classical Music Hour" presented by public radio station WGUC-FM, a Cabaret Corner and the Cincinnati Branch of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society, among others.
Organizers make no secret of the fact that Summerfair is a family event, a chance to reconnect with one another during the post-Memorial Day rush that sounds the starting gun for summer. Moreover, art is a healing thing, a salve. So a festival celebrating and displaying art in a central location, disconnected from Cincinnati's infamous East Side/West Side thinking, removes superficial boundaries and connects art connoisseurs (sometimes considered to be uppity) and owners of dogs playing poker on velvet, alike.
Summerfair began in Eden Park in 1968 as a salute to the newly opened Playhouse in the Park. Thirty years later it has evolved into one of the nation's longest-running continuous arts festivals. Annually, 65,000 people are drawn to Coney Island, the current site of the three-day festival. And from the $5 adult admission price, mighty arts communities grow. Grants, scholarships and exhibitions are underwritten from the Summerfair coffers.
For local artists who perform for the Summerfair crowds -- Cajun/Boogie-Woogie pianist and singer Ricky Nye, renowned Jazz guitarist Kenny Poole, Robin Lacy & DeZydeco or Elaine & the Biscaynes -- the weekend festival widens their audiences beyond the realm of their normal urban venues.
