FK Photo: “dART St. Louis”

(Above) The Dark Room is “in-use” again— this time for the first annual event, “dART St. Louis.”
(Above) dART party-goer Deborah Flanagan from California and Bob Henningsen share a Schlafly beer with Teenuh Foster, photo rep at Ferguson Katzman Photography.

(Above) A giant digital map of the city of St. Louis was projected on the wall, then dART throwers took turns throwing their dART.

(Above) Designer Liz Sullivan shows perfect form with her dART throw.

(Above) Tia Liston, an art director in St. Louis, is caught in mid-throw.

(Above, left to right) Ria Sharon, Allen Lambert and Suzanne Tucker are all smiles after throwing their dART! Ria and Suzanne are the forces behind the wildly successful web site mymommymanual.com.

(Above) Photographer Scott Ferguson strikes a serious pose for his portrait.

(Above) Students from some of the nearby colleges were in attendance at the first annual “dART St. Louis.”

(Above) Deborah Flanagan, who lives in California—was in town to see her best friend Teenuh Foster, and is seen here with Bill Kumke, Senior Creative Director at Checkmark.

(Above) Charlotte Schweppe of Schweppe Studios visits with fellow designer Sandy Zub of Checkmark.

(Above) The dimly lit room for the projection of the dART board made room for the dramatic. Here, a dART thrower’s profile seems to mimic the winding path of the Mississippi River. (at least, at THE TIME, that’s what I saw).



ONCE AGAIN, FK PHOTO HAS PUT ON ANOTHER INCREDIBLE EVENT AT “THE DARK ROOM,” which is fast becoming “the place to be” amongst the culturally aware in St. Louis. The event, dubbed “dART St. Louis” was a smashing success. The Dark Room is simply the “party room” of FK Studio.

Here’s the way it worked: Participants in “dART St. Louis” threw one dart at a giant projected map of the city of St. Louis. Using the computer, we digitally marked the exact location of the actual dart that was thrown, zoomed in to that location, and identified the cross streets for the “dartist.” An assistant then wrote the location down on a sheet of paper for the participant and now their photo location was identified.

All participants will have a month to go to their location and take photographs. Dartist’s will later be given instructions on how to upload their photo to FK Photo’s FTP site. A month from now, everyone will join again at The Dark Room for a multi-media presentation of the work produced. Any kind of camera may be used.

I have been given credit for the idea of dART St. Louis, which is only true here on a local level. The original concept for an event like this comes from Heather Holbus, of Chicago. Heather created Dart Chicago, which was open to writers, artists as well as photographers. We were hoping that Heather and her friend Lindsey Helms would come down to help us kick off this, but they were not able to make it.

Refreshments for the event was kindly donated by Schlafly Brewers, who offered quite a few of their products for the tasting. Especially delicious was the Helles-Style Summer Lager, which was a medium-bodied ale, perfect for the evening. My second favorite was the Raspberry Hefenweizen, an unfiltered wheat ale.