Beaux Arts Festival: Beauty, Art & Fundraising

The Annual Art Festival Beckons

When the Beaux Arts organization was inaugurated in 1952, it started with just 50 members. Its first event was called the “Clothesline Fair” and displayed works from local artists that were literally pinned up on a clothesline. Fast forward to today: There are now 90 active members, plus some 400 associates (former members). But their mission remains the same: to raise money each year to support the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami. The all-volunteer, all-female-led organization does this through an annual Beaux Arts Ball in the fall and through Coral Gables’ premier art fair, The Beaux Arts Festival of Art.

On January 13 and 14, the festival will take place for the 73rd time, making it the longest-running art fair in Miami-Dade County. As always, the Beaux Arts Festival will unfold on the grounds of the university, adjacent to the museum it supports. This year, the fair will feature some 200 artists from around the country and is expected to attract over 25,000 visitors. Fees from booth rentals, combined with the financial support of sponsors and, later, tickets sold for the Beaux Arts Ball, have over the years raised more than $8 million to support the Lowe.

While fundraising for the museum is key, a big part of the festival’s mission is to engage the local community with artists — admission to the fair is free — and to promote local artists to the wider world. Many Beaux Arts contributors go on to exhibit at major events, including at Miami Art Week. Several artists have even moved to Miami after spending time at the festival. Each is first vetted for admission, and, once accepted, their work goes before a jury. Awards are given in nine different categories, including watercolor, ceramics, photography, and digital art, with over $20,000 in prizes.

Last year’s “Best in Show” award went to Randy Ekhart, a painter from Maine who also received first place in watercolor. Other festival artists with followings include William Kidd, a ceramicist of natural forms who took first place in ceramics last year, and Magali Cereghino-Groves, the Best in Show winner in 2020, who received an award last year for wooden art, using a gourd pattern-burning technique from her native Peru. The festival’s judges change each year, allowing for fresh perspectives and helping eliminate any notion of preconceived bias.

The 2023 Winners: Alex Lanier (left), Best Drawing and Digital Category winner. Magali Cereghino-Groves (top right), Best Wooden Art winner. William Kidd (bottom right), Best Ceramics winner

An Artist’s Perspective

Local artist Alex Lanier has been exhibiting his ink drawings and digital renderings at Beaux Arts each year since 2018. Trained as an architect at Florida International University, Lanier abandoned that career when his drawing ability allowed him to work as an artist full-time. Last year he won first place in both drawing and the digital category, taking home $1,200 in prize money for each award.

Lanier, who keeps a studio in Wynwood, is not represented by a gallery. He says that social media has become the main arena in which to showcase and sell his work, citing a case in point: When actor and comedian Martin Lawrence noticed his output online, a commission followed for a large work. And when the comedian posted an image, it went viral, giving Lanier validation from a celebrity and exposure to a huge audience.

His digital success notwithstanding, Lanier also takes his show on the road to art fairs around the country, from the Coconut Grove, Winter Park, and Orlando shows in Florida to the Atlanta Dogwood Festival in Georgia and the Utah Art Festival in Salt Lake City.

“There is something special about interacting with people in the real world, an element of feedback and conversation that you don’t get online,” he says.

And though all the fairs are similarly organized, Lanier says few are as good as Beaux Arts when it comes to selling his work.

“Even though I make a lot of my sales online, I always come back to Beaux Arts, where the customers tend to be young professionals, and where I get to make new connections,” he says. Last year, Lanier sold one of his works at Beaux Art for $7,000; his prints also sold, starting at $40 each.

Beaux Arts was Lanier’s first art fair. He chose it, he says, not only because it was near where he lives, but because as a previous spectator he was impressed by the quality of art, the crowd, and the fair’s organization. “The fair was not only close — it was really good,” he says.

For the volunteers who organize and operate the fair, these are welcome words. For many members of Beaux Arts, it is a generational continuum, following in the footsteps of their mothers, sisters, and grandmothers — all to help support community art. “There’s not a single paid staff member,” says current president Cecilia Slesnick. “Most of us work, have full-time jobs and families, so this is really a labor of love.”

Recently, we met with Slesnick to share crêpes at Sweet Paris, the trendy new café at The Plaza Coral Gables. Slesnick has a warm and jovial personality, underscored by a whimsical sartorial style.

The morning we talked, she was sporting a bejeweled headband and a colorful tweed coat emblazoned with her initials on the lapel. Along with her two co-chairs for the festival, Jordan Kever and Caroline Buck, Slesnick takes pride in the fact that the event is widely recognized as one of the leading art shows in the country.

To become a volunteer and a member of Beaux Arts, a current or associate member must sponsor you. Volunteers make a seven-year commitment, with a new president elected each year. Members, Slesnick says, must pay $250 dollars in annual dues and buy a ticket to the annual ball. But the reward is worth it, she says: “It is a wonderful volunteer organization of women who have similar interests in the arts, cultural affairs, and in arts education.”

Co-festival chair Kever is in her fifth year of volunteering and also wears the vice-president’s hat, which means she will assume the presidency when Slesnick’s year-long term ends in the spring. “This year, I have shadowed and apprenticed with Ceci Slesnick, which is an important step to understanding the job of president,” she says.

Buck, the other co-chair, is in her fourth year as a volunteer, and an artist in her own right — a watercolorist who specializes in custom stationery and invitations. Beaux Arts, she says, “is a close-knit group of women focused on bringing access to the arts, while also having fun.” 

Undertaking the festival wouldn’t be possible without the work and drive of 30 volunteers who make up its committee. (Other Beaux Arts members volunteer for committees that range from sponsorship fundraising to public relations for the organization). Kever says the number of artists exhibiting this year will be 20 percent more than last year, and that the fair now includes a new children’s marketplace, where art activities are supported by one of the organization’s leading sponsors, UHealth Jackson Urgent Care.

The Big Picture

Although Beaux Arts Inc. and the Lowe Art Museum are separate 501(c)(3) nonprofits, they work closely with each other, a collaboration embodied by Jill Deupi, who is both the Beaux Arts’ paid professional director (made possible by an endowment that partially funds the position in perpetuity) and chief curator of the museum. It is Deupi’s task to set the museum’s exhibition schedule and curate between six and 12 shows annually, as well as organize the permanent collection into themes and areas of focus.

The Lowe, which Deupi calls a “mini Met,” encompasses a formidable 40,000-square-feet and more than 19,000 objects in 14 themed galleries, plus the Palley Pavilion glass collection and a sculpture garden. The museum’s collection includes masterworks from around the world, such as paintings by Monet and Gauguin, and two early Spanish works currently on loan from the New York Met’s medieval collection. The Lowe continues to be free to the public, thanks in no small measure to the financial support from Beaux Arts.

Although the Lowe is normally closed on Sundays, it opens its doors for Beaux Arts’ weekends. In 2024, the festival will neatly coincide with the conclusion of “Order Up! The Pop Art of John Miller,” an upbeat exhibit of diner food rendered in brightly colored blown glass that Deupi says aligns well with the spirit of the fair.

Slesnick says that one of her favorite times at the festival is the morning of the artists’ arrival for registration, when their vans are pulling in. Often, they’ve been on the road for days, coming from places as far-flung as New England and Washington State.

“I am definitely a festival girl. I love seeing artists in person and observing how they change and evolve their styles,” she says. “And it’s also nice to have repeat exhibitors. Some people have been with us for decades.”

After a decade of volunteering herself, Slesnick says that much of the artwork in her house is from previous festivals and that she’s now running out of wall space. Her two children have become involved, developing personal relationships with artists whom they seek out each year, purchasing reasonably priced prints for their rooms.

Slesnick may be the president, but she says her responsibilities include “booth sitting” when an artist needs a short break — and that she delights in making sales in their absence. While the artists pay an application fee, plus the cost of their booth space, proceeds from sales go exclusively to the artists themselves.

Alongside the artists, the festival promotes local businesses, with a designated area for vendors to showcase clothing and children’s toys, as well as artisans making hats and fans. There is also live music from local bands, plus myriad local food options, including a festival favorite, Salty Donut, along with a beer and wine garden by Gables brewpub Bay 13 Brewery & Kitchen. While the weather is a big concern for any outdoor fair, Slesnick says that in her 10 years of volunteering, they have only been inconvenienced twice by inclement conditions.

As president, Slesnick is responsible for coordinating the other activities of Beaux Arts, which include a student artist showcase each April, with categories of painting, photography, mixed media, and digital art. (The chosen works are then exhibited at the Lowe, with a reception and awards ceremony for winners). Each summer, Beaux Arts also offers weekly art camps for students ages five through 12. And the organization recently launched an outreach project called “HandsOn!” in which students from Title 1 elementary schools and CHARLEE Homes for Children spend a day learning about the museum’s exhibits and participating in art projects.

Then there is the annual Beaux Arts Ball, which began in 1953 and holds the distinction of being the oldest costume ball in South Florida. It is organized by a separate committee, but, like all the committees, reports to the president. The galas, each with a theme, take place in October, and the artistic costumes are taken very seriously. Under Slesnick’s tenure in 2023, the theme was “Out of This World,” with costume contest winners enjoying bragging rights for the ensuing year.

While Slesnick’s enthusiasm for the ball is palpable — it’s the organization’s largest fundraiser — she concludes our conversation with a heartfelt eulogy to the festival: “At Beaux Arts [Festival], all the artists get to call Coral Gables home for the weekend. They arrive on Friday; they’re here through Sunday. They stay locally in the Gables; they eat locally in the Gables. We really love showcasing our beautiful city to them. And they come back over and over and over again.”

Beaux Arts Festival
January 13 & 14, 10 am to 5 pm
Watsco Center at the University of Miami
1245 Dauer Dr.