Pat Eby Special to the Post-Dispatch
A new full-color coffee table book chronicling the art and history of Blueberry Hill came out early in November, just in time for holiday giving. "The Window Display Art of Linda Edwards at Blueberry Hill," designed and written by her daughter Hope Edwards, celebrates her transitory art installations and performance art pieces in concise text and beautiful photos.
The windows have been clever, thoughtful, funny, sly, campy and even risqué on occasion. Crowds still gather at the corner of Delmar Boulevard and Westgate Avenue to view them.
Linda has always loved store window displays. When she was 15 she encountered an empty store window, with no glass, the platform open to the street. "I impulsively jumped in the window and struck a pose. One person walked by, stopped and started looking, then another, and another until there was a crowd. I held that pose for half an hour and then I ran off," Linda says.
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"When we expanded Blueberry Hill I knew what I wanted to do," she says. The intimate corner window space beckoned. On Halloween night, in 1986, Linda and four of her friends walked into the window for the first time. Five elegant witches all dressed in black got ready for their big night out in a devilishly appointed spooky bedroom. They performed silent shows at 10 p.m, 11 p.m., and, of course, at the witching hour. The crowds loved them.
Linda's designs range from impressive performance art scenes with multiple actors to sets small and tightly focused. Hope appreciates her mother's understanding that small and simple is often sublime.
"One year, she created 'Oh Little town of Bethlehem' using a pedestal with a miniature Nativity scene on top. The figurines were just about an inch and a half tall. All the focus was on that preposterously tiny Nativity. She had all this elaborate draping and with a spotlight focused on the manager," Hope says.
Some dates are sacred on the window calendar. In January, Linda commemorates Martin Luther King's birthday. Every July Elvis takes center stage on his birthday because music reigns from the jukebox to the live shows there.
Throughout the book Linda's understated humor shines in photos of Joseph's Bachelor Party the night before he married the Virgin Mary and Rosemary's Baby Shower. Linda followed Elvis from Tupelo to Graceland in a performance window where the King himself belted out tunes. Even the Pope visited the window with two security agents in tow to bless the crowds gathered outside.
The book honors Linda and her art of over 200 installation and performance pieces that capture the culture of our time and Blueberry Hill's successes.
"I wanted to get my mom's work out into the world," Hope Edwards says. "I wrote and designed it as an art coffee table book. We made the price very reasonable for anyone to buy."
"This has been a 25-year project for both of us," Linda says. "Hope also took many of the photographs starting years ago."
The book is just one example of Hope's designs that run through her dad's many projects. She's a talented photographer and graphic designer whose award-winning neon signs for the Peacock Diner and Magic Mini Golf light up Delmar each night. She turns out logos, crafts posters and invitations to special events and more. She designed the St. Louis Walk of Fame book celebrating 140 St. Louisans.
As for Linda, she continues to make sidewalk theater. "I do it for myself, for my own fulfillment and I do it to show Blueberry Hill's point of view and to draw people in. I feel I share the displays with the street," she says.
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