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2024 Old Town Art Fair – Chicago

EXHIBIT

A man holding a ribbon in front of paintings.Considered one of the top Art Fairs in the country, the Old Town Art Fair was voted #1 in America for the fourth year in a row.* It takes place the second weekend of June in the heart of the charming Old Town Triangle Historic District on Chicago’s North Side. There are 220 artists, an estimated 30,000 art lovers, a Garden Walk, Live Music, Food Court and Children’s Corner. Gates open Saturday 10:00 am to 7:00 pm and Sunday 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, rain or shine.

Exhibiting Artists often name the Old Town Art Fair as one of their most successful events of the year. The enthusiastic collectors, family-friendly atmosphere, and helpful neighborhood volunteers make it a favorite venue for artists. Hear what they have to say.

PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING CHANGE:

The Old Town Art Fair organizers would like to alert interested Artists to some upcoming changes in this year’s application process. One of our goals for the coming Fair is to attract a more inclusive roster of Artists and additionally include a new Emerging Artist category to support and develop young artistic talent. To that end, our application window for the coming Fair will be October 1, 2023 – January 15, 2024. This timeframe will allow our team to optimize our offering and provide beneficial impact to the depth of our Fair. We’re excited about these upcoming possibilities and the potential to further strengthen one of the best art fairs in the country. 

Apply here through www.zapplication.org

  Artists set up
FRIDAY 4:00 pm – 8:00 pm

The Old Town Art Fair also offers:

  • Artists’ Breakfast – Continental Breakfast is available Saturday and Sunday morning
  • Artists’ Aid – Girl Scouts distribute refreshments to the Artists during the Fair
  • Booth Sitting – available Saturday and Sunday afternoon

We appreciate your interest in the Old Town Art Fair!

Please note: You can apply for up to three categories per application/profile. A separate application and fee is required if you wish to be considered for additional categories.

Two Dimensional Media:
> 2D Mixed Media
> Digital Art
> Drawing/Pastel
> Painting
> Photography
> Printmaking

Three Dimensional Media:
> 3D Mixed Media
> Ceramics
> Fiber
> Glass
> Jewelry
> Metal
> Sculpture
> Stone
> Wood

The Old Town Art Fair is a Fine Art Fair, exclusively. Artwork must first and foremost be an artistic expression; utilitarian purposes must be secondary. All work must be designed and handmade by the accepted artist and the artist must be present during the Fair. Production studio work is absolutely prohibited. The display and sale of commercial reproductions of any kind are not allowed.

The following items are not to be exhibited at the Old Town Art Fair:
> Books
> Buttons
> Calendars
> Calligraphy
> Cards
> Candles
> Clocks
> Clothing
> Desk Accessories
> Hair Ornaments
> Hats
> Lamps
> Leather Goods & Bags
> Mirrors
> Musical Instruments
> Pillows
> Planters
> Posters
> Puzzles
> Stationery
> Toys
> Utensils
> Wearable Art
Click here to download a PDF detailing our full Exhibitor Policies, Artist Rules and Fine Art Requirements.

The Old Town Art Fair is a juried fine art fair. Each year, artists are reviewed and chosen by an independent jury of experienced professionals including gallery owners, artists and museum curators. Jurors are recruited from the Chicago art community and represent a variety of disciplines.

The Jury is convened twice a year, once during the winter and again during the Art Fair. During the winter sessions the jury selects new artists seeking to enter the Fair. Approximately 700 artists apply each year. The Jury meets again during the Art Fair when all of the participating artists are juried on-site. Based on the jury scores, artists are invited back to or juried out of (and eligible to reapply for) the next year’s show.

Photography, Digital Art, 2D-Mixed Media
Alexandria Eregbu
Carolyn Potts
LP 'Larry' Lundy
Glass, Ceramics, Fiber, Stone and Wood/3D Mixed Media, Jewelry, Metal and Sculpture
Noël Ashby
Mia Capodilupo
Anthony Adcock
Painting, Drawing, Pastel and Printmaking
Jason McPhillips
Nancy Rosen
Rajee Aryal
3D Mixed Media Jewelry, Metal, Sculpture
Melinda Whitmore
Eric Gushee
Sophia Forero
Click here to download a PDF with complete exhibitor information and detailed instructions. Click here to download the Tax Reporting Form.
Saturday, June 8, 2024 – 10:00 am to 7:00 pm
Sunday, June 9, 2024 – 10:00 am to 6:00 pm
Where: Old Town Triangle Center Building 1763 N. North Park Ave. (corner of North Park and Menomonee)
When: Friday, June 7, 2024 – 2:00 pm to 7:00 pm
Saturday, June 8, 2024 – 7:00 am to 9:00 am
Friday, June 8, 2023 – 3:00 pm to 8:00 pm (assigned load-in times)
Saturday, June 10, 2023 by request – 7:00 am to 9:00 am
Click here to download a Map of the 2022 Art Fair, including gate, booth, stage and food locations.
Where: Old Town Triangle Center Building 1763 N. North Park Ave. (corner of North Park and Menomonee)
When: Saturday, June 8, 2024 – 7:00 am to 9:00 am
Sunday, June 9, 2024 – 7:00 am to 9:00 am
Girl Scouts will be on duty to distribute refreshments and smiles to artists during the Fair.

Booth Sitting services are provided especially for artists who are exhibiting alone, but is available to all artists. Volunteers will be available 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm for a 20-minute break on both Saturday and Sunday. If you are unable to leave when your volunteer arrives, you can ask the volunteer to return before they finish their shift.

To sign up, email boothsittingotaf@gmail.com prior to the Fair or you can request booth sitting assistance at check-in. You will be asked to sign a Booth Sitting Agreement/Waiver.

You can like us, follow us and post information and samples of your work on: Facebook.com/OldTownArtFair. You’ll find an OTAF badge here to include on your own page.

Also follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @oldtownartfair to get OTAF news and live updates during the Fair.
Looking for more ways to let people know you’ll be at the Old Town Art Fair? Click here to download a digital version of the Old Town Art Fair post card. You can include the JPEG in an email to use as an invite, reminder, save the date, booth number announcement, thank you card . . .
The following streets will be CLOSED for the Fair starting Friday, June 7, 2024 at 7:00 am. Signs will be posted as NO PARKING – TOW ZONE. Towing will begin Friday morning. Parking in alleys is strictly prohibited.
Lincoln: West side of street from 1900 to 1920
Lincoln Park West: Lincoln to Menomonee
Menomonee: Sedgwick to Crilly Court
North Park: Menomonee to Eugenie
Orleans: Wisconsin to Menomonee
Sedgwick: East side of street from 1849 to 1853
Willow: Sedgwick to Crilly Court
Wisconsin: Lincoln to Sedgwick
The Old Town Art Fair has blocked several locations to provide parking to Exhibitors. For those artists who need to make parking arrangements through the Art Fair, please click here. Click here for a list of parking options in the area.

Chicago has many overnight accommodations including Airbnb, small boutique hotels and large chain hotels. The Old Town Art Fair has no relationship with any provider.

Click here for a list of local hotels and group rates, where available.

*ArtFairCalendar.com

Alexandria is a creative anthropologist. Her practice spans across art, music, poetry, and justice. As the founder of Finding Ijeoma, Alexandria uses her platform to curate meaningful forums that celebrate heritage and uplift African diasporic values and lifestyles— using DJ sets, exhibitions, and intentional gatherings.

https://www.alexandriaeregbu.com/

I create photography marketing strategy, photo consulting, business development, coaching and portfolio editing for photographers and other creative services providers. My consulting practice is built on over 35 years as a successful artists representative in a highly competitive major ad market. I've helped professional photographers achieve their business goals of producing image content and visual storytelling projects for major ad agencies, design firms, publications, and corporations across the country and around the globe. I'm proud to have represented award-winning, A-level photographers working on projects for ad agencies and global brands. I have provided the connections and managed the business relationships for talented photographers working for clients who want and need imagery and photography services that are way better than "good enough."

https://cpotts.com/

As a young child, Larry instinctively knew he was an artist. He began his long career in the field of art in high school, when he reimagined the format for his school’s literary magazine. Upon graduating from SUNY Buffalo State College, he moved to Chicago and worked as an illustrator, a copywriter, and backdrop mural painter, but it wasn’t until he completed a short film for Encyclopedia Britannica that the door was opened to the world of production design, art directing, set decoration and set design. Along with Cindy Sherman and Robert Longo, Larry was a co-founder of Hallwalls Art Center in Buffalo, NY. He also developed projects like the LOOP Show, which aimed to elevate and recognize Chicago-centric art. His career in art direction and set design has produced notable work on the sets of Native Son, ER, Flatliners, High Fidelity, The Babe, Mind of the Married Man, Sense8, Shameless, and Batwoman. Larry teaches courses in Production Design at Northwestern University.
https://www.facebook.com/LPLundy/

Having received her BFA in Painting/Printmaking from the Kansas City Art Institute, Noël has maintained an exploratory approach to art making. Noël began her design career in the fashion industry and for decades has been creating surfaces patterns for interior and product use. She is known for her layered surfaces and sophisticated color palette, as well as her unconventional use of materials. Inspired by these materials themselves, weights of lines against form and the interpretive visual quality of words, her work is primarily transitional in nature and has been used in a broad range of products for the Contract, Residential, Hospitality and Retail markets. Working with such clients as DesignTex, Donghia, Maharam, CB2, and Carnegie, she has created designs for textiles, walls, glass, floor art, carpet and 3D objects.
https://www.noelashby.com/

Mia is the founder, owner and director of Ignition project space in Chicago, which provides space and funding for visual artists to develop and show new work. As a sculptor and installation artist originally from Boston, she received a BA from University of Chicago, studied sculpture at Massachusetts College of Art and received an MFA in Sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute. Mia has participated in solo, group shows and residencies in museums, galleries and alternative spaces around the country. She has additionally received art grants from the City of Chicago, City of Urbana, IL and the Illinois Arts Council. Mia has completed large public projects for the City of Chicago, was commissioned to create semi-permanent installations for the Indianapolis Art Center, City of Atlanta and the City of Bellevue, WA.
http://www.miacapo.xyz/

Anthony blends his unique experiences working as a Local #1 Ironworker and as an artist to create works that explore the relationship between labor and value.  Using hyper illusionistic trompe l’oeil painting, sculpture, and installation, he distorts the line between reality and perception to question the importance and relevancy of authorship.  He received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Chicago and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the American Academy of Art with a specialization in oil painting.  His work has been published in New American Paintings, Newcity Art, the Examiner, and has been collected by 21c Museum, the Roy Liechtenstein family, and many other private collectors.  Anthony has exhibited at venues including Volta/Armory Show, Art Miami, the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Logan Center Gallery, Lyons Wier Gallery, among others and has contributed to performances for artist William Pope.L at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and Whitney Biennial.  Currently, Anthony teaches at Harper College and at Vitruvian Studio in Chicago.
https://anthonyadcock.com/

As a symbolist painter, Jason creates enigmatic images inspired by the intersection of myth, perception, and scientific theory. Beginning his career as an aspiring filmmaker, he found himself called to drawing, painting, and sculpture while visualizing his short films. This passion for figurative subjects led him to continue his studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Concentrating on artistic anatomy, landscape, and the illusionistic methods of the renaissance, he developed his aesthetic through a close study of nature, launching his painting career in 2003, with a project entitled “Travelogue”. Painting and journaling daily, he traversed twenty-five states, exploring both without and within. He exhibited these paintings alongside journal excerpts and musings on his experiences. Landscape remains at the core of his practice. He has exhibited nationally, placing work in many prestigious collections. His most recent work employs metal leaf and relief effects such as pastiglia and sgraffito, exploring the tension between illusionistic space and decorative effect.
https://www.studiomcphillips.com/

Nancy was born and raised in Chicago and earned her BFA in painting and sculpture at the Kansas City Art Institute. A dedicated painter, educator and mentor, Nancy has devoted her life to painting, exhibiting and teaching. Her work has exhibited in galleries across the country and though her paintings can be difficult to categorize due to her unique use of mixed media and surfaces, most of her work is figurative in nature. She combines oil bars, China markers, graphite and oil paint on a variety of surfaces, including gessoed paper, pieced and handmade papers, linen and rice paper. Her pieces feature infinite detail and layers, textures and colors. Nancy has shown in many venues including shows at Kansas City Art Coalition, Elmhurst Museum, Milliken University, The Post Family, and the Illinois Art Institute, but most recently, her work has become nationally recognized through the popular Netflix series Grace and Frankie, where Nancy’s art is prominently featured as Frankie’s (Lily Tomlin’s) paintings.
https://www.nrosen.com/

Originally from Kathmandu Nepal, Rajee holds a Bachelors’ degree in Computer Science and Mathematics and worked as a software designer for several years before completing her MFA in painting and drawing at the School of the Art Institute. In her visual works, Rajee breaks apart a representative whole such as an image or a text into its constituent units, which she then puts back together to create a different whole that subverts the narrative of the original. Her work quite literally sits at the nexus of science and art. Rajee’s works have been featured in many print materials for the School of the Art Institute, as well as being featured in many gallery shows in the city. She lives in Chicago and produces work in her studio space at Mana Contemporary.
http://www.rajeearyal.com/

Melinda received her MFA cum laude in painting from the New York Academy of Art and BA degrees in both Art History and Studio Art from Indiana University. She held an assistant curatorial position in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago and also sculpts anatomical models for many of the country's top anatomical supply companies. Her work has been featured in American Art Collector, American Artist Drawing magazine, Poets&Artists, the Art Renewal Center, Manifest Gallery’s International Painting Annual, and numerous exhibitions from New York to Chicago. Melinda teaches anatomical drawing and écorché at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, at the University of Illinois Chicago Biomedical Visualization Department, and in the Medical Humanities department at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She is also co-founder and principal instructor at Vitruvian Fine Art Studio in Chicago with her husband, painter David Jamieson, where they place a strong emphasis on artistic anatomical training alongside traditional painting, drawing and sculpture practices.
https://www.melindawhitmore.com/

Eric is a Chicago based artist who was born and raised in New York City. His interest in art was first ignited at Marlboro College, where after initially studying creative writing, he fell in love with sculpture. Graduating with highest honors, Eric then went on to earn his BFA from The School of the Art Institute. Gushee created metal furniture elements at a small local foundry called West Supply, supplying high-end bronze furniture to Holly Hunt. It was there that his personal work, characterized by strands of metal woven into organic, circular layers, was first noticed by Hunt’s team and subsequently used to animate their showroom spaces. Much of Eric’s work is a struggle between the two and three-dimensional worlds, the shadows cast by his sculptures often can be seen in his drawings and sometimes the drawings themselves are made from the sculpture’s materials. His work combines the unfamiliar world with the familiar, he does not try to disguise the materials he uses but embraces them for what they are. His work demonstrates the smallest composition elements are capable of profound gesture. Eric is a founder of the Artruss Gallery in Chicago.
https://www.ericgushee.com/

Sophia attended University of Illinois, majoring in Political Science and completed graduate studies at University of Chicago. That same year, she received a book that would forever change her life called ‘Africa Adorned’. This publication drew her to the study the jewels of Africa and the general language of adornment. Following a stint in the Peace Corps, Sophia traveled throughout the Balkans and former Soviet Union, gathering elements to create her custom jewelry creations. Upon her return, she was awarded the prestigious Marshall Field's Distinction in Design for her work and then displayed in the Field’s iconic State Street store. With this platform of recognition, she started her business, the Feel Beautiful Gallery, which just celebrated its 20 year anniversary in Burr Ridge last year.
https://sophiaforero.com/