Art on Main - Memorial Weekend 2024

Summary for participating artists: Location change, greater exposure time, moved student art to the Summer at the Smithsonian - Brigham City, and changed our prize scheme.

We've made changes to the Fine Art and Plein Air components of Art on Main - Memorial Weekend in an effort to  make things better for you and our patrons, and to increase our prize pool and art sales! 

Our challenges are pretty straightforward:

1. Academy Center Art Show foot traffic does not reflect overall festival growth (4,000-5,000 visitors). Notably, the Highway 89 Show, located more centrally, saw higher attendance than our 8th annual event at the Academy.
2. Exposure time at the Academy is limited due to high facility costs and it only allows one full day of visitor access.
3. Accordingly, Art sales have fallen short of expectations, with fewer paintings sold compared to previous years.

With your input, we've made the following changes:

The Fine Art Show and Plein Air Competition will move to Hive on Main, central to the historic district and your work will be hosted for more than a week. For convenience, you may enter studio pieces starting Saturday, May 18th (start of the Plein Air), throughout the week, up to the deadline of Friday, May 24th. The gallery exhibit will remain open through June 1st.

Hive on Main (location of the Hwy 89 Show last year) is a smaller, more intimate space. With careful curation, it will accommodate a similar number of paintings as the Academy, although we may need to limit artwork size and forgo large 3-D pieces. Additionally, all but the very best student art will be relocated to the Brigham City Museum as part of a special Smithsonian curated project.

Each artist's work will be hung in a collection, rather than in a random fashion as in years past. You have the option of a full collection space of 4' X 8' for $125.00 and hang as many paintings as desired, or fewer paintings and share a collection space in the gallery. This allocation will be on a first come, first served basis and encourages modest sized works. 

These changes, combined with robust artist participation, will allow us to expand our prize pool. As always, entry fees are returned in the form of prize money, which is supplemented by sponsor funds. The added exposure time will also improve the opportunity for art sales.

A unique feature of this year's festival is The Smithsonian Exhibit - Crossroads: Change in Rural America. Brigham City is the only location in Northern Utah to host this exhibit and a special  student art initiative held during the festival will generate significant regional interest. We believe this will translate into a substantial increase in overall festival attendance. Accordingly, little, if any student artwork will be co-located in the gallery exhibit.

A corresponding theme of this year’s plein air will be Change in Box Elder County.  We encourage plein air work to reflect a contrast between our rural historic roots and emerging technical or structural change. 

We hope these improvements will be both interesting and profitable, please visit our application portal for more information. Thanks for your past support, we look forward to seeing you at our ninth annual show.

David Walker, Volunteer Director

Art on Main