We love summer in St. Louis. We love the culture, the festivities, the food...it's just a great town to be in this time of the year (minus the holy hell hotness). With all of our St. Louis love in tow, we were excited this past weekend to go out and experience one of the town's many fine events, as we FINALLY had a free weekend. We decided on the CWE Art Fair and Taste. I'll admit, I'm a hit or miss fan of the Central West End...I think it depends on what time of the day I'm there, meaning that I prefer the daytime version better than the nighttime version.
Our main reason for hitting up the fair was to see a great local band,
The Northwoods...it's Simon and Garfunkle meets Nickel Creek with a dash of Cake (I say that because he played a Cake cover). This time around, The Northwoods consisted of just their front man, but he brought it. Armed with a loop pedal, the guy was a one man wrecking crew of beats. I was especially impressed because he was playing to a crowd of about 8 (as the fair had just opened at 11) and it was already butt crazy hot...but he handled it like a champ.
Having seen what we really came for, I was satisfied, but you can't go to an art fair without looking at art...so off we went. And the art...was...ummm...I'm trying to say this nicely...it was not...that...good. Whew, there...was that ok? I'm not sure the reason for this, though it was later brought to my attention that this was not a juried event, so the competition factor was not there and it also seemed that they kind of just let anyone display their stuff as long as they had the fee paid. Cheap jewelry, paintings of hearts, many an oil painted landscape (like...total Bob Ross style)...it was all accounted for. Except..."Whoa, honey...what do you see in that tent over there? Are those pictures of humans doing random things, except instead of their usual human head,
they have the head of a cat???" Oh...freak yes it is.
That would be Cleo'cat'ra, dancin' her way to the CWE. It was pretty much the greatest use of cat heads on human bodies that I had ever seen. But wait...there's more!!
Mr. Licks a Lot and Tootie Poopers, taking in a day at the Creepy Old Man Museum.
Oh...so pretty...so graceful...so...hold the phone, is that a 'Mona Kitty Lisa' in the background?? Scandalous.
And there's really nothing like heading to the beach with a giant cat helmet to watch the transluscent ships come in from sea.
I'm going to be honest here, at first sight on Saturday my immediate thought was to make fun of Catworks, but after reading some of the
website, all I can do is give props. Big, furry, paw-shaped props. The 'artist' sticks with the story that he is merely the curator of this collection of early 20th century paintings. The claim is that these pieces were found in a basement or something in around 1902 and that the origin is unknown. The great thing is that he sticks to this claim in every aspect of the website, not once slipping out of this story. Smart play, Catworks Master...make crazy awesome pictures of freakish cat-head humans but take none of the credit while claiming they are from 100 years ago, thus negating any opportunity the paparazzi may have of capturing candid photos of these celebrity cats or their creator. Cat Master wins...Cat Master always wins.
- the Hubs
