2025 April: Art Fair Season Begins

Mary Haapala Art - While the Paint Dries Issue 02

Author

Mary Haapala
April 28, 2025

Art Fair Season Schedule

It’s back! My art fair season starts next week. My paintings are all being prepped, photographed and getting ready to be hung. I reinvested some of last years profits into my tent display hopefully making it easy to lug around and hang up pieces aesthetically. Here’s my schedule so far for this Art Fair Season:

Makers and Mimosa’s Spring Market -NEXT WEEKEND!

When: Sunday, May 4th (10am-4pm)

Where: Mother Handsome in Oak Park Michigan

What: Great Lakes Artisan Markets has been organizing these cute and crafty pop up Artisan Markets for about a year now. If you attended the market in December, this one will be a similar vibe! Mother Handsome is a fun and welcoming cafe and restaurant that has space to host about a dozen small businesses and crafters for this fair. Come for the coffee, pastry, pizza and cocktails and browse all of our booths. It’s supposed to be good weather (fingers crossed) so I’ll be hanging on their patio in my tent!

Farmington ART on the GRAND

When: Saturday, June 7th (10am-7pm) and Sunday, June 8th (11am-5pm)

Where: Downtown Farmington, MI (Grand River Ave)

What: Farmington ART on the GRAND is always a great time! I had a booth there last year and really enjoyed this popular and medium-sized art fair. With about 100 booths, I think this fair is just about the perfect size- plenty of options to find the perfect art piece, but not too overwhelming! This year I’ll be in booth 46 in front of the Village Shoe Market. If you come Saturday morning you can also stop in the Farmington Farmer’s Market in Riley Park.

Berkley Art Bash

When: Saturday, June 14th (10am-6pm)

Where: Downtown Berkley, MI (12 Mile Rd)

What: Berkley Art Bash fills all of 12 Mile each year with tents and crowds! I will be returning for the third time to this fair. Even though there are usually around 150+ artists and vendors, tents are nicely spaced out and you are able to walk in between and cut across the road-no problem. Stop by Clark’s for ice cream as you browse and come find my booth!

Pop Up @ University of Michigan Credit Union

When: Friday, July 18th (9am-5:30pm)

Where: UofM Credit Union on South University (1121 S University Ave, Ann Arbor, MI)

What: I was invited this year to set up a space inside of the UofM Credit Union during the Ann Arbor Art Fair! The bank is offering activities and a spot to cool down during the always notoriously hot art fair. I have never applied to the Ann Arbor Art Fair directly as it is really expensive and moderately far away. I haven’t figured out how to get all my art fair displays and supplies into one car quite yet, so that would be a lot of driving! I did go to school at UofM so the Ann Arbor Art Fair is always a staple of my summer! I am excited to bring a smaller display to a nice air-conditioned bank in Ann Arbor during the famous Ann Arbor Art Fair.

More to come!

I’ll be sending out another newsletter mid summer to outline my fall and late summer art fairs. I am holding off applying to more at the moment until after the first couple events of the year- I’m always worried about not having enough art!

Speaking of Art…

Sharing some recent shots from my easel and drying rack! I have lots of new originals to bring to art fairs this year. I was able to take a wonderful class taught by local artist Ed Duff (check out his Lake Michigan sunsets— they are amazing) so a lot of my pieces from Q1 are landscape focused.

Finished waterfall scene that I started back in December! This long & skinny canvas was a lot of fun to work with. I actually had to combine a few photos from my trip to Olympic National Park back in 2021 to get all the information I needed. Don’t tell anyone but the pine tree tops were photographed about a mile away from the Sol Duc Falls. Note for future hikes: capture the whole tree!

some more detail shots of “Sol Duc Falls”

Mapping out of “Glacial Valley”

First layer of “Glacial Valley”

Many layers and refinement later- the finished piece! I used some loose color interpretation here and played up differences in the grasses and water to try to capture the sweeping movement of this valley. In reality, the water was actually a pretty even color- that chalky blue- but I wanted to add more motion to it. I captured the photo reference for this piece in El Chalten, Argentina after hiking to Mt. Fitzroy (of the Patagonia brand logo). We were exhausted after hiking 8+ hours and badly needed some pizza but we stood on the last overlook for a while, just watching the river wind its way below us.

The photo reference, some detail shots, and the aforementioned pizza (I thought the olives matched the color palette nicely so it was included. Also because it was tasty.)

Anyone recognize this local spot (I think the signs might give it away)? This was the local ice cream store we would go to growing up in Farmington, MI. The painting still isn’t quite done, but its probably 95% of the way there! I think the rightmost person needs a friend at her picnic table.

This large painting is still on my easel. I have to finish softening the clouds and add some final touches and highlights. Hopefully it’s ready before the Farmington and Berkley art fairs!

Bonus: Goldfish paintings with relatable expressions.

See more from me here!

Instagram: @maryhop.art