Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Walking White Street
Popular spring art show finally logs 30th year
Editor’s Note: As we do every year, the What’s Up! staff looked back to see what arts stories we published in 2022 that we expect will have a lasting impact on the culture of our community in 2023. This is Becca Martin-Brown’s third choice and originally published May 15, 2022. Look for an update at the end of the story.
The White Street Walk, a staple of the Eureka Springs Festival of the Arts every May, should have celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2020. Instead, due to covid-19 concerns, that event was just a gathering of artists and their work printed in What’s Up!
“For the health of the public as well as our own health, we thought it best to not have the walk during 2020 and 2021,” says Zeek Taylor, one of the event’s three founders. “The crowds during the walk are dense, and that is especially true of interiors where folks gather. I think when we made the decision to not have the walk, we knew it was not the end, but just a postponement until safer times.”
Those times have come. The White Street Walk [returned for 2022] from 4 to 10 p.m. May 20.
“We decided to have the event this year because the development and release of the vaccine has been a game-changer,” Taylor says. “We the organizers along with participating artists are excited and once again ready to share our art with the public. We are hopeful that attendees are responsible and vaccinated.”
Taylor is, of course, known for his vivid watercolor and acrylic paintings portraying chimps in a variety of human poses; other animals; and gorgeous flowers he probably grew in his own garden. Co-founder Mary Springer has always been known as a figure painter and jeweler but is moving into new work. And Eleanor Lux is a weaver. Springer and
Taylor met at the Memphis (Tenn.) Academy of Art, where both were what are now called “nontraditional” students: Taylor already had a degree and had been teaching art, and Springer was looking for “a new life” after her husband was killed in the Vietnam conflict in 1967. Lux had also attended the Memphis school and moved to Eureka Springs first, paving the way for Taylor and Springer to follow.
“We will miss Eleanor being part of this year’s art walk,” Taylor says. “Loving grandmother that she is, she will be at her granddaughter’s high school graduation in Fayetteville.”
The White Street Walk has grown over the decades from maybe 15 artists to at least 40 to 50. Those that don’t live on White Street find niches in driveways, on porches and along sidewalks to show and sell everything from paintings to pottery, clothing to crochet, digital art to jewelry and more. Mini-profiles of some of this year’s participating artists are included here.
While styles change and artists come and go, one thing remains constant at the White Street Walk. Taylor will greet guests in his home with heaps of homemade cookies — the recipe is called “a bushel of cookies” — candy-coated pretzels and about 60 liters of wine. Asked why he does all that on top of creating his own art and organizing an art show, he says simply:
“My mother taught me that all good southerners offer food and drink to their guests, and even though my guests for the evening number in the hundreds, I try to have enough refreshments to serve everyone.”
Update
“We do plan to have the walk in 2023,” Zeek Taylor says. “We will stay with the tradition of having the event the third Friday in May, so the date for 2023 will be May 18. The walk is one of the longest-running and most popular events that take place during the annual May Festival of the Arts in Eureka Springs.”