Webster Festival Garners Rave Reviews

The Webster Community Music School is playing a version of the "Cantina Band" song from Star Wars while an Irish dance school showcases river dancing students 50 yards away. It is a breezy 85 degrees, and just down the hill, more than 115 artists have gathered in white tents to showcase their art to any and all comers.

It is Sunday, June 5, the final day of the 8th annual Art & Air festival in Webster Groves. From all over the country, painters, sculptures, jewelers, engravers and photographers have gathered in the clearing on the green, tree-filled grounds of Eden Seminary.

Ginger Krueger, managing director of the festival, is just one member of the Webster Community Arts Foundation—a nonprofit organization that sponsors events throughout the community—called the festival "one of the most important things we do in the community every year."

More than 400 artists submitted work for consideration for the festival. A jury of Arts Foundation members determine the best works and invite the artists to showcase their talents at the festival.

One addition to the festival, multiple stages for performing arts displays, have increased the variety and interest in the festival, Krueger said. When only one stage was featured in years past for select bands, now two official stages are set up, along with several smaller spaces arranged by artists for performances.

"We've seen in the past the festival is visual-arts dominated," Krueger said. "We tried to focus this year on some performing as well."

Some of the performing arts included the Mayer-Torno School of Irish Dance, who featured student displays on a small stage all day. The Fox Foundation also participated this year, featuring the Teen Talent Showcase. Local high school teens dances, sang and juggled for a crowd of family and community members.

Others, like the spoken word display, Hip-Hop Aesop, told the stories of Aesops fables to children using dance routines and spoken word.

Artists like Johanna Mueller, an engraver, traveled long distances. A Colorado resident and engraving instructor, Mueller and her assistant Steven Scott are attending festivals across the country for the summer.

"This is our favorite so far," Mueller said. "Business is good, and people are happy, weather is decent."

Mueller's engravings are a painstaking practice, requiring 30-45 minutes per square inch, Mueller said. But the detail and time impress the crowds. More than once, Mueller or Scott will tease the crowd with a brief demonstration of the process. They even provide jewlers goggles, so any doubtful onlooker can see the fine detail.

Mueller would be announced as the Best of Show winner later that day, and recieved a cash prize.

Some artists like Kevin Trobaugh come to the festival for different reasons. Unlike Mueller, Trobaugh works a steady job as a sheet metal worker with a family. He only does three or four shows a year, but his large scultptures of steel, aluminum and bronze are always popular at Art & Air.

"I usually work on comission, but folks seem to like my work here and I've done this festival one year before, always a good show," Trobaugh said.

Trobaugh's largest peice on display is more than eight feet tall and doesn't fit in his tent. Fitted with three rotating pieces, the gleaming metal structure looks more like a windmill designed by Tim Burton than the work of a sheet-metal worker from O'Fallon, Illinois.

According to organizers, the festival draws around 20,000 people every year. The temperature affected crowds on Saturday, when the heat index soared over 100 degrees. But that didn't stop residents like Cody Allan and Anna Kaminski. The two Webster Groves High School graduates of 2004 came on Sunday with their dogs, Winston and Muddy, to enjoy a festival they've attended in years past.

"We've come before, and it's always a good time," Allan said. "We drove by today and said 'lets drop in for a while.'"

Though now residents of Richmond Heights, Kaminski and Allan say that the festival is one of the things that their community has that "keeps them coming back."

"Who doesn't like free art, free music?" Allan said.