Lafayette High Alum Gregg Rasmusson: 2012 Saint Louis Art Fair Artist Profile

A bit of Wildwood and Lafayette High School will be at the Saint Louis Art Fair in a creative way for the first time ever this year.

One of Gregg Rasmusson's pieces of pottery was given to Chief Executive Ken Poteet on Tuesday in recognition of the bank's recent major donation to the Saint Louis Art Fair. The artist's experience underscores the educational focus of this year's festival, which enters its 19th year Sept. 7-9 in downtown Clayton.

Rasmusson is a graduate of in Wildwood. There, he enrolled in advanced placement studio class and had attended the Art Fair as a high school student, had dreamed of showing there one day. He then attended the Kansas City Art Institute.

See related article from Tuesday: 

After graduating, he returned to his hometown of Des Moines, IA, and taught some beginning pottery classes. He later moved to St. Louis and bought a house in Overland.

That was seven years ago. He envisioned putting a studio inside it and making a living doing art. But when the reality of needing to make mortgage payments set in, he spent several years paying the bills by remodeling houses.

Then one day about a year and a half ago, he had an epiphany.

"'What am I doing?'" Rasmusson said he recalls thinking. "I need to start making pots again."

He put his remodeling on hold and started crafting pottery full-time.

This year, he expects to attend about nine art shows. He didn't expect to get accepted to the selective Saint Louis Art Fair, but was thrilled when it happened.

Rasmusson's pottery draws on his work as a remodeler: Several pots on display Tuesday, for example, are patterned after some of the backsplashes he designed for kitchens and showers. He thought it would look cool, and his friends encouraged him to keep going after they saw his work.

To make them, he carves patterns into the clay pots; glazes and fires the pots; and then fills the gaps between the patterns with black grout.

His high school art teacher, Pamela Senti, also attended Tuesday's event. She spent nearly 20 years at Lafayette High School before retiring a year ago.

"Gregg was extremely creative in his thinking," Senti said. At the time, he was just getting into artwork made of clay. He also made several "beautiful" hand-built ceramics.

Senti focuses on painting and drawing, but as a teacher she had to know a little bit about everything. Rasmusson was interested in three-dimensional art early on, and it's rewarding to her that he and other students have gone on to find success in the art world.

"This is a dream, not just for me but for Gregg as well," she said about his acceptance into the Art Fair.

More about the 2012 Saint Louis Art Fair on Patch: