What a fine festival

Lewiston Council on the Arts is consistent with its annual art festival. We were there as patrons, early Saturday and volunteered late in the sweltering afternoon.

We walked the show as always, seeing some of the artists we love and have known and a few we never noticed before.

Beth picked up two woven coasters she hoped to find because we had seen, purchased and found them functional.

I grabbed a mug from Junko McGee because I am particular about coffee mugs and hers are perfect. It has to have a certain shape in the belly and a handle that is just right.

The crowd seemed down, because of the heat. Still, there were artists worth visiting.

Tom Asklar was there, as always, with his dramatic lakescapes. His brother John may be sitting on a lawnchair a block away from our house, enjoying retirement and a cigar.

Tom is busy reworking his Edmund Fitzgerald talk, contemplating a visit to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum on the Upper Peninsula. It is a 12-hour drive from here but worth the trip as an intellectual pursuit.

If you want to hear what he comes up with, be there at 7:10 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 5 in the upstairs at Brickyard Brewing.

Ann Peterson is a full-time artist from Buffalo who exhibited for the 4th time and won a blue ribbon for best of show, not an easy task. Her photos are raw.

“I am using the camera as a tool rather than just reproducing what is in front of me,” she said. Here winning photo was a in image of buildings diffused by a wet window.

A few standbys were missing, for example, I didn’t see Kelsey Merkle, Jim Neiss or Don King exhibiting Polly’s art.

Dr. Tom Gerbasi, the indefatigueable carnival barker was there to hawk Rotary Club hotdogs. Lew Custode and his quartet entertained with funky Dixieland swing.

A short distance away, “Better Off Read” was set up promoting its Summer Book Festival, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 30 at Artpark. The event will feature thousands of books for $1 or less, storytelling, artists, merchants, food trucks and more.

They have a fun list of donors, including Abba, Arctic Monkeys, Bob Odenkirk, Drew Barrymore, Coldplay, Metallica and Radiohead.

The free festival encourages reading, promotes writing and celebrates storytelling and will include a high-profile, celebrity sponsored basket raffle.

No recap of the art festival would be complete without note of the volunteers and staff who endured the scorching weather to help artists, sell shirts and water.

Lots of people come and work a two-hour shift as we did. The heroic folks are the staff like Michelle Kratts, Maria Fortuna and Susan Hake who arrive both days by 7 a.m. and don’t leave until close. Michelle and Maria’s husbands were there as well.

The shirt design this year celebrates the architecture of the village and was a hit with artists and visitors. In fact, if it didn’t sell out on Saturday it surely did on Sunday.

By 6 p.m. Saturday, when Beth and I had finished our shift as information booth volunteers, more than 400 bottles of water had been sold for $1 each.

At a time when state parks allows Delaware North to fleece visitors for $7 a bottle, seeing water for $1 is refreshing.