Maze of Art

Friday, Leslie and I decided that we would attend the Schlafly Art Outside in Maplewood. We knew that parking would be limited, so we left early, and decided to eat at a Maplewood restaurant. We just wanted something simple, so Leslie picked out a place called Shotzie's.

"Sholtsky's?", I asked, "Home of the Big Schlotz?"
"No, Shotzie's. It's a bar-restaurant. They have pizza and stuff for you."

I was a bit skeptical, but I'll give anything a try once. We wound our way through the side streets that weren't closed, and found some parking. On our way to the restaurant, we walked past the open windows of Boogaloo. It wasn't very crowded at this time, but I wasn't in a mood for Boogaloo tonight. Besides, we were supposed to try a new place, and that's what we were going to do.

Shotzie's was another restaurant along the Maplewood row with the front windows open, cool air spilling out into the street. I always wonder how restaurants and stores can afford to waste air conditioning like that, and if they burn up their a/c 's compressors. It's a nice effect, but it seems so wasteful.

We went in the restaurant. It's your typical sports bar atmosphere. Video games, a bar, and lots of tv's showing Sports Center. A moose head with a Cardinals cap hung on one wall. I didn't study the menu too much, but they did seem to have a few veggie options, including veggie lasagna, however I wasn't in the mood to menu search, so I just ordered the veggie pizza. Leslie got a chicken sandwich.

The veggie pizza was different. Besides the regular toppings like green pepper, black olive, and onion, they also put cauliflower, and carrots on the pizza. Of course all of this was all on a thin-crust, which made a decent attempt at holding all of these toppings. I didn't have too many expectations for the food, so my expectations for the meal were actuallly met. Not good, not bad, just some plain, honest bar food, all amidst a neon, tv glow atmosphere.

As we left to go to the art fair, we again walked past Boogaloo, which was still quite empty, and we realized that maybe we had made the wrong choice. When we reached Schlafly, we walked past the fiddle playing rock band and began to look at the booths. We saw that Schlafly, too, was serving food. It didn't occur to us to eat there, because we figured it would be packed, but they had a whole outdoor BBQ set-up, complete with Portabella sandwiches. Oh, well, live and learn. We started to make our way around the booths.

As with all of these art events, there are a few good artists, and lot of decent attempts. The best that I saw were: Firecracker Press (who did all the art for this year's event), William La Chance (brother of Alicia, who is one of the best artists in St. Louis), and some girl who did these abstract city and crowd scenes which looked like colorful squares. I also saw a guy (I think his name was Crow) who did a picture of an 18-wheeler which was pretty cool. I didn't like much of his other stuff, but he had good brushstroke, and the truck was much better than his other stuff. After walking around admiring all the work, and talking to some of the artists, we decided to go ahead and make a $15 purchase of the poster you see at the top.


Saturday, we attended the Clayton Art Fair (now called the St. Louis Art Fair) early in the morning. It was a hot day for September, and the sun beat down upon us as we walked around. This fair is bigger, but not necessarily better. I think a lot of the artists realize that the main buyers will be 50 yr. old ladies with Clayton taste, so the art, imo, sometimes falls along the lines of safe or cute-sy. Almost all of the pottery, jewelry and clothing, I simply walked past. Leslie looked at some of the jewelry, but the crush of people made the shopping experience a little rushed and unpleasant for her. Out of all the artists, the best I saw were Alicia LaChance (of course) and some guy from Chicago (Joe something?) who did more cartoon-y stuff (like robots and bartenders) with great titles. Like I said, there was some good stuff, but things like black and white photos of city-scapes are just so safe that it doesn't appeal to me. It has an artful eye, but no real soul. It's like a thousand photos I've seen before. Nothing special.

As we walked through the crowds in the blazing sun, we became thirsty and decided to get some drinks. Rather than spend $6 on two waters, we decided to just get one and go get some food after the fair. We walked past the many smoking grills and open restaurants on our way out, and decided to go get some tacos. And where else better to go, than Nevaria la Vallesana.

Kevin had put an idea in Leslie's head, and we were soon driving toward the south side. The inside of Vallesana was packed, but we soon got our oder in. Quesadillas for me, tacos barbequoa and carne asada for Leslie (they were out of al pastor.) I watched as the guy made the taco meat. he had a big pile of meat and onions on a grill and turned and chopped them with two butcher knives. Soon our food was ready. I scooped some salsa out of the jar at the counter on my food, and we went out to sit under the umbrellas and enjoy our food. You really do feel like you're somewhere different down on Cherokee. It was a nice break from the hustle-bustle of Clayton.

After our late lunch, we went home for a short nap (the sun, the walking, and a week filled with kids had taken it out of me) and soon we were revived. We decided to go to a movie, and our choice for the evening was Little Miss Sunshine. This movie was a semi-indie (Fox Spotlight) and it had the guy from 40 Year Old Virgin in it. Overall it was pretty funny.

And today I woke, made pancakes, and am getting ready for some football. Hope everyone had a good weekend too.

luv,

cm