When people walk by the rows of tents at ArtsGoggle, they’re exposed to hundreds of Fort Worth artists and their distinct styles.
But throughout the 21-block festival in the Near Southside, one artist’s portfolio is stamped on official event graphics, marketing materials and branded merchandise.
Each year, festival organizers feature one artist from the application pool they believe best reflects “who we are as a neighborhood,” said Near Southside Inc. President Megan Henderson.
ArtsGoggle’s return to Magnolia Avenue on Oct. 24 will be branded by Fort Worth artist Casey Kleeb.
“She’s crossed the line between fine portraiture and caricature artists that create and capture the magic of something kind of instantaneous,” Henderson said of Kleeb. “It wasn’t too serious. It didn’t feel too perfect.”
Kleeb’s whimsical and colorful portraits have showcased at local businesses and neighborhood art walks. She designed the logo for the upcoming Near Southside restaurant Hiro’s Kitchen.
Kleeb and her husband, Nick, who works at The Holly wine bar in South Main Village, have organically immersed themselves in the community since 2018.
“It feels very sweet and overwhelming in the best way,” she said of the opportunity.
Casey Kleeb is a Fort Worth artist residing in the South Main Village. Her focus is on giving permission to be “weird, free, and most of all, connected to each other,” according to her artist statement. (Courtesy | Near Southside Inc.)
ArtsGoggle launched in 2003 as a community-led alternative to the Fort Worth Art Dealers Association’s biannual Gallery Night. The event started as a small showcase of local artists inside about a dozen Near Southside businesses before evolving to what it is today.
Although the ArtsGoggle typeface logo remains static every year, the Near Southside team more than 10 years ago felt that the branding was missing a creative look reflecting the event’s mission of uplifting local artists, Henderson said.
When looking through applications for the October 2016 festival, Henderson came across a watercolor rendering of a goat from artist Bre Evans. The animal reminded Henderson of longtime neighborhood leader Elizabeth Samudio, who died two months before.
She was the owner of Elizabeth Anna’s Old World Garden, now called The Barn, and known for annually attending ArtsGoggle alongside her pet goat.
Evan’s art not only unintentionally honored Samudio, Henderson said, but captured the festival’s essence of being “weird and unexpected.” She became ArtsGoggle’s first featured artist.
“It made me think about how an artist who did not know Elizabeth, and had never met her, had somehow captured the spirit of the festival in the goat,” Henderson said.
The list of past ArtsGoggle featured artists
2025: Mel Walker
2024: Tatyana Alanis
2023: Jackdaw
2022: Sandy Jones
2020-2021: No event due to the COVID-19 pandemic
2019: Sierra DuFault
2018: Karla King and Aaron Welch
2017: Jeff Skele
Now, the Near Southside team usually has a featured artist in mind months before the festival’s fall return. If the selection was only based on resumes, it would be difficult to ever make a choice, Henderson said.
“Instead we sit down to select an artist that says something about what we believe in, or reflects where we’ve been or what we belong to as a community,” she said.
David Moreno is the arts and culture reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at david.moreno@fortworthreport.org or @davidmreports. The Report’s arts and culture coverage is supported in part by the Meta Alice Keith Bratten Foundation and the Virginia Hobbs Charitable Trust.
Disclosure: Megan Henderson serves on the Fort Worth Report’s reader advisory council. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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