Fairfield is known for many things. It hosted the first Iowa State Fair in 1854. The first public library in Iowa, endowed by the Andrew Carnegie Foundation, opened in Fairfield in 1853, and for many years was one of two Carnegie libraries in the community of about 10,000. Fairfield is home to the oldest country club west of the Mississippi River. (What were you expecting? That Fairfield is known as the U.S. headquarters of the Transcendental Mediation movement and home to Maharishi University of Management?)

Increasingly, though, Fairfield is known for something else: art. Fairfield’s 1st Fridays Art Walk was named the 2005 Iowa Tourism Event of the Year by the Iowa Tourism Office, a division of the Iowa Department of Economic Development. On the first Friday in December, visitors will get a bonus: One of the approximately 20 galleries opening their doors for the event is Emerald Gallery, host to the fourth annual Small Works Show, Iowa’s largest exhibit of original works by artists from across the nation

“This community is unbelievable,” said Luci Ismert, executive director of the year-old Fairfield Convention and Visitors Bureau. She has been marketing communities to outside guests for 20 years and said Fairfield is “probably the most creative community I’ve ever been a part of.”

This year’s Small Works Show features works by David Garrison, who was named a master pastelist/artist earlier this year after he participated in the “L’Art et la Matiere” in Nemours, France; Des Moines painter Larassa Kabel, who has exhibited her canvases extensively through the Midwest; Gordon Kellenberger, an artist living in High Amana whose pastels of the Iowa landscape simplify its basic features; and several nationally known Fairfield artists, including woodcarver John Schirmer, painter Hans Olson of Fairfield and pastelist Geri Felix.

Though the Art Walks are held on the first Friday of each month, the Small Works Show runs through Jan. 9 at Emerald Gallery at 56 S. Main St. on Fairfield’s town square. The show features more than 260 pieces of work by 95 artists, 34 from out of state, including artists from Indonesia, Norway, France and Ukraine. Emerald Gallery is a concept rather than an actual physical gallery, and its location changes from year to year, said Stacey Hurlin, executive director of the ArtLife Society, the organization sponsoring the show.

The ArtLife Society was founded on the beliefs that art and life are inexorably linked and, according to its mission statement, that “living life with the intention of creating a masterpiece is to recognize that life lived in its purest form appears … as artwork in progress.”

“To me, it’s all about education – about living artfully, educating the community on how to appreciate artists as viewers and how to bring art into their home,” said Hurlin, a former elementary school teacher and one of the ArtLife Society founders. The 1st Fridays Art Walk, founded in October 2002, was her brainchild, though it’s grown to the point that a non-profit organization has been established to oversee it. Hurlin likens turning the event over to a non-profit board to sending a child off to college

“You can only be the original creator before it grows beyond your grasp,” she said. “Art Walk took off with such a rapid success and took us all by storm. I don’t think any of us had any idea by the tail.”

Hurlin said Fairfield is home to more than 300 artists, many of whom have moved there from other parts of the country because of their interest in TM, but also some whose family lineages in Southeast Iowa go back several generations.

“We have such a gold mine of artists who have transplanted here,” said Holly Moore, who serves on the volunteer board overseeing the monthly Art Walks. “It’s a real natural to have a monthly Art Walk. It’s pretty darned effortless – there’s just that much work being created here.”

The Art Walks aren’t just built around visual arts like painting and sculpting, but include several venues with live performances of music, dance or theater, and that’s been a big part of its success, Hurlin said. Fairfield is home to a number of performing and cinematic artists who are actually better known outside the city than in it, including Irish bagpiper Tim Britton, known nationally in Celtic music circles; professional mime Sax Gilbert; and director David Lynch of “Blue Velvet” and “Twin Peaks” fame, who lives part-time in Fairfield.

Hurlin said the monthly Art Walks have been a unifying force in a community that often is defined by outsiders by its differences, often drawing thousands of people, not only from Fairfield but from throughout the state. “Not only are all the different stratas of society represented, but all of the ages, too,” she said. “Teenagers, college students and grade-school students all know it’s 1st Fridays Art Walk, and that’s where they want to be.”

Other businesses have benefited from the monthly attraction, including the 40-some restaurants in a community that considers food an art, Ismert of the CVB said. “You could stay here a month and eat at a new restaurant every day, and we’re talking international cuisine – Thai, Chinese, Indian, French, Mexican, Caribbean. How many communities of 10,000 have all that?” she said. “They celebrate the arts – not only painting, but film, dancing, singing and performing. It’s everything, and they celebrate it with a zest for life. Fairfield has something for all of our senses.”