Glynnis Lessing

Previous Post: Garden Gnomes   Next Post: Kohler Festival of the Arts

The Krasl Art Fair

What an interesting fair in terms of what I learned and also rife with little incidents.

First of all, I decided to try using a trailer to haul my stuff to the fair.  I paid for a hitch to be installed on our poor old car and rented a U Haul 4×8 trailer.  The men at the U Haul seemed vastly more confident in my driving skill than I was.Really flattering picture, eh?

I picked it up Friday morning and drove it  without a hitch (haha!) to our house where a spot to load magically opened.

Everything fit in there with room to spare; darn, now I realize I didn’t take a photo!

As we drove off I noticed in my rear-view that the trailer has a sign on it- designed to be readable in my mirror- “Max Speed 45” !!

So there I am creeeping along the highway until I see some guy pulling the exact same trailer whiz past me at about 65 or 70!  So I went 60 with no problem after that.

We arrived in beautiful weather.

There is a certain air of quiet, hardworking, purposefulness when all the artists are setting up. It feels good to be part of that.

While we were setting up some guy sunnily walked through singing very badly at the top of his lungs.  Pretty harmless.

Our spot on the bluff overlooks a brand new fountain. We knew they were building one last year but we had no idea it was an interactive fountain!  My son could barely contain his excitement enough to help us set up and then we let him go down there where he stayed for nearly 2 hours! Every 20 minutes or so, the “big cannons” go off.

We also have two friends from Argentina in the fair. Last year, I noticed Marisa Rufino’s  paintings and sent my husband down to check them out and he came back very excited saying they were from Argentina, up here for about a month to do a bunch of art fairs and could they stay at our house?

So they are back. Her partner, Daniel Belloli makes these incredible sun dials so they were both in the fair this year. This is their web site:  http://www.artejuela.com.ar/

The next morning as I was setting out my pots, I could hear some guy just yelling. I thought maybe it was our singer from the evening before but pretty soon word began to spread. The guy had been asked to leave and was completely out of his gourd. First the police tried pepper spray and then finally they had to use a tazer- neither of which had any effect at all! As I went to change clothes at the hotel,  I saw 4 of St. Joseph’s finest really struggling to get him into the squad car. He was alternately yelling “I love you!” followed closely by vicious swearing. I just kept walking feeling grateful this happened before the fair opened!  By the time I emerged, the squad car was gone with the guy in it.

It was a beautiful day and people were very appreciative. This fair is the best run fair I’ve ever been in and they treat the artists wonderfully. I love being here.

My son and husband went off to ride the new carousel and check out the museum and fountain (again).

Sunday was another lovely day

and I had several customers who had bought things from me last year. It’s always so wonderful to hear how people are living with my pottery and if they like it.

I guess the reason I make mugs is because it is an object so many people take away from the table, cradle, hold, sip from, and start their day with.  I can’t tell you how much pleasure I get from hearing people say, “I start my day with your mug every morning”  or “ I love my mug!”

Late in the afternoon we had yet another small incident when I heard one of the artists nearby chide a tourist – who had been bad mouthing Obama- “you’re not a very good Christian” at which point the tourist came at him very aggressively and the tourist’s wife had to physically drag him away while he raged that he had been called a  “bad christian”.

This unpleasantness was completely erased by the pleasantness of all the other fairgoers who cheerfully walked the length of the fair in the hot sun buying art and chatting with the artists.

Our take-down is getting better and more organized but we did have to stop and go get the trailer which kind of slowed our momentum. I tried backing it in but at some point, with traffic backing up I started yelling “just unhook it and we’ll push it by hand!!” which is what we did and that worked just great. The 4X8 is easy to manouver by hand when it’s empty.

We had a a celebratory dinner with Dani and Marisa and slept well at the hotel. The next day we went blueberry picking and had a picnic lunch at the beach nearby.  A perfect weekend!