By Rachael Lindley
Photos courtesy of Art Worth
Greg Belz has long been a champion of the arts. Born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee, he found himself wanting to create a large art festival of his own. After visiting Fort Worth, he ultimately decided that Cowtown was the best place for the job. Belz, never one to back down from a challenge, organized it all from states away.
Art Worth is a celebration of visual art and classical music. Patrons can enjoy a juried exhibition featuring the work of artists from across Texas and the US, as well as demonstrations of decorative arts disciplines, including glassblowing, metalsmithing, wheel-thrown pottery and woodturning.
360West: Tell me about your background, Greg. How did you get into this?
Greg Belz: I am basically a cheerleader for artists. As a child, I attended Saturday and summer painting classes at The Memphis Art Academy; art was my favorite class in High School, and in 11th and 12th grade, I took two art classes each day. Then, my parents forbade me from becoming an art major in college. So, I became more of a spectator, but a very enthusiastic one.
After school, I became friends with a couple of older painters, one of whom had been with the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York. They complained about difficulties they faced in selling their work; so, I set out to solve their problems. With ignorance and hubris as my guides, I ended up staging some fairly impressive and sizable indoor exhibitions of paintings and sculpture.
I enjoyed that, but after a few years, I decided to focus more on my actual livelihood, which was derived from television promotion: my job was to make people watch TV, a pretty soulless thing.
After the internet erased most of what I did, I became an entrenched Luddite and found I am attracted to artists working in 3-D media; some call it fine-craft, but the “C” word creates confusion: people working in glass, metal, wood, clay and fiber, at the level of talent that I hang out with are artists, pure and simple, and I am proud to be their cheerleader.
360West: Why did you choose Fort Worth for an art festival?
Belz: I had done some PR for a Broadway touring company that involved using local artists as a hook to get press attention for the play. All of the artists were painters I knew, but two, whom I had not met previously, worked in clay; they asked me to help them stage a holiday market. I did and got hooked again, this time on 3-D work; so, I realized that I needed to find something to fill the rest of the year, and founded another nonprofit to do it. There was just one problem: I was not born in a place that was tremendously supportive of artists. There was some support for museums, but not a real understanding of the need to support the people who make art. So, I looked at a map of the South: Atlanta and Florida were already saturated, and doing anything in New Orleans would have been like carrying coals to New Castle. So, I decided to explore Dallas and spent two disappointing summers looking for a venue there. Then, one day, I decided to drive to Fort Worth and fell in love. It was so different; so unassuming, yet innately sophisticated and enthusiastic about the arts of every stripe. In just a couple of hours, I decided to follow in the footsteps of fellow Tennesseans, Sam Houston and Davey Crockett, but I am hoping for better results.
360West: How do you find your artists? About how many artists will be present this year?
Belz: These days, all major shows — which is what we hope the Art Worth Festival will become — recruit artists online. We are members of Zapplication, a portal owned by a consortium of art festivals in western states, and we buy ads from services that send show notifications to thousands of artists. Word of mouth is essential, too; the artists who do the top shows all know each other, and talk about their experiences: to the great advantage or detriment of a show. We had a fairly bumpy beginning, from which we are still working to recover. We started our event on the lawn at Will Rogers; the first year was promising; the second year, some really major artists joined us, and it was dismal; hardly anyone came, and the artists were not happy.
From that carnage, though, came a wonderful new location for the show: the front lawn of The Shops at Clearfork. The people at Cassco and Simon are tremendously supportive, and we also gained some wonderful advisory board members, as well as dedicated supporters, who enabled our rise from the ashes with a very successful event in 2024. As a result, this year’s show will have some very impressive participants. We have 88 artists lined up to exhibit this year. We never meant for our show to be as big as Main Street; we’ll add a few more artists in the future, but one must be careful about the caliber of the work admitted; so, we’re content to grow slowly and steadily in our quest to attract the festival world’s top-tier.
360West: What can people expect when they come to Art Worth?
Belz: The coolest thing that makes our event stand out from other shows is our dedication to illustrating how talent and skill work together to create art: we feature continuous demonstrations by artists working in glass, metal, wood, clay and even sculpting stone. Some of the exhibiting artists are also scheduling demonstrations to give our guests insights into their process.
Secondly, our festival features Classical Music. Fort Worth abounds with musical talent, and we are blessed to have performances by area ensembles ranging from middle and high schools, to the university music programs of TCU, UTA, UNT and Texas Wesleyan; not to mention our musical program’s pièce de résistance: a performance each day of the festival by our presenting partners The Fort Worth Opera. Guests may also hear a little jazz.
And, The Shops at Clearfork offer so many great restaurants; CRÚ Food & Wine Bar will actually be joining us on the lawn with an impressive beverage station.
360West: Is there any artist and/or artwork that you’re especially looking forward to this year?
Belz: Now, you know I cannot say that I have a favorite child, but there will be some very accomplished people with us this year. James and Carrie Pearce (art fair royalty) will be joining us for the first time: he works in wood; she in mixed media, their work needing to be seen to be believed. Fredrick Prescott and his giant animal sculptures are giving us another shot after enduring the 2023 show, which is really gratifying. So, too, is Eric Mort, who blows glass into wonderful spherical universes. I guess, though, that I may have a favorite after all: Cathra-Anne Barker and her husband Richard Meyer are incredible ceramic artists from Santa Fe; they’ve done all three of our prior shows, and are incredibly supportive. In addition to being a superlative artist, Cathra-Anne is a great believer in our event, so much so that she’s returned multiple cash prizes that she had won to help contribute to our future. Last year, she was chosen Best of Show, and I always feel that way about her.
All of the artists are great; if they weren’t, they wouldn’t get into our show. There’s not a clunker in the bunch. I can’t even begin to describe how wonderful the jewelry is. Everything is a must-see!
360West: What are your long-term goals with Art Worth?
Belz: I want the Art Worth Festival to achieve four goals: to be a nationally renowned art exhibition; to serve as an incubator for the next generation of festival artists. We are starting on that program this year to develop funding for a project that I am stealing from Cherry Arts in Denver (with their blessing), a mobile gallery that will visit area schools and be curated by their students, to help foster future generations of collectors. Finally, I want Art Worth’s success to be the catalyst for the possibility I saw on my first day in Fort Worth, to enable ArtWorks Foundation to build a Texas Center for the Decorative Arts — a goal for which there aren’t enough pages left in this month’s issue to describe. Maybe next time?
Art Worth is entering its 4th year and will take place on the front lawn of The Shops at Clearfork, running from October 24 to 26. Friday and Saturday hours are 10 a.m.–6 p.m., 11 a.m.–4 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is free.