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08/03/02 With his easy smile
and loud shirt, he makes friends fast. People pause, take a longer look
at his colorful ceramics and acrylic paintings and, sometimes, join his
mailing list. He's hoping to make
a few more of these friends this weekend at the art fair that he helped
found, one of three this weekend in Minneapolis. Hundreds of thousands
of people are expected to visit the annual fairs in Uptown, Powderhorn
Park and Loring Park. Though thousands of
people will walk by Nemer's booth, it's the ones who cross his magic line
- marked by a rubber mat - that trigger his sales pitch. "When they
cross that threshold, that means they're interested," he explained
Friday, the first day of the fair. Nemer has a system
for his sales, for drawing people in and gauging their interest. First,
he brings a boombox - the music helps pass the time, and it lures people
to his booth. Then he keeps two oscillating fans going so that people
will be more likely to linger on a hot day. And once they're in his booth,
he likes to ask browsers if they can see themselves owning one of his
pieces. If they say yes, he asks them to write their e-mail address in
a notebook he keeps handy. Does all this work?
"People are sensory," he said. "I throw a little color
in there. Add a little music - it's like bees to the honey!" If Nemer seems more
like a salesman than an artist, well, that's because he's both. For years
he toiled in marketing but recently he became a full-time artist. Not
that he was a novice. In fact, he was one of six people who helped launch
the Uptown Art Fair. In 1963, he and five
other art students at the University of Minnesota sold their art on the
street in the original version of what has now become one of the largest
art fairs in the country. Back then, Nemer was a long-haired, goateed
artist with deerskin boots up to his knees and a tie-dyed tank top. A
group of merchants from Uptown invited them to come and hawk their wares
as a way to attract people to their stores. Nemer and the others lined
up along Lake Street between Girard and Hennepin Avs. and propped their
artwork up on the street curb. People looked at them
curiously. "There weren't many art fairs back then," Nemer said.
A spell of rain forced the artists into a nearby bowling alley, where
they bowled a few games and waited for the skies to clear. He sold prints for
$5 and $10 each, walking away from the weekend with about $25 worth of
sales. "To me that was a million," he said. Today, he's 57, clean-shaven
with close-cropped hair. A tag identifying him as a participant in the
Uptown fair dangles from his neck. "I feel like the grandfather of
this thing," he said. His booth on Hennepin Avenue sits about 30
feet from the spot where he first sold his art. After that first year,
Nemer quit exhibiting at the Uptown fair, but for years, he attended,
strolling the fair and looking around, but he didn't seriously consider
applying for a booth himself. But last fall he decided it was time to
devote more time to his art. He took the plunge, holing up in his studio
at home in Minnetonka, creating. After all these years, he decided to
sell again at the Uptown Art Fair. But this time, he had to apply. During
the nearly 40 years he was away from it, the fair has grown from six people
on a street corner to 385 artists spread across several blocks south west
of W. 28th St. and Hennepin Av. The application asked
if he'd ever presented at the fair before. Yes, he wrote. When? He penciled
in 1963. He always knew there
were different sides of him - the business side and the artistic side
- and for much of his life he kept the two separate. Now, he said, he's
found a way to marry the two personalities. Through his website and e-mail
lists, he sells his art across the globe. As he talked, his
eyes shifted to a woman in a straw hat whose toe just poked over the line. Nemer grinned and
approached. "You know what you get for that?" he asked, fishing
one of his cards from his pocket. Carile Neale and her
husband, Dan, stepped all the way into the booth. Bingo. Two more friends. |