About that Art Festival

I thought there was a lull in the Lewiston Art Festival a year ago.

Maria Fortuna was the new executive director. Eva Niklas was done. Regime change is hard.

A relative came last year and looked around.

“Same tired artists” he said.

His wife chimed in when I celebrated the artist who won the best of show.

“I knew her in school and never liked her,” she said.

We walked past Brickyard.

“Overpriced mediocre barbecue” my guest said.

They didn’t come this year. Everything was better. Except Brickyard was the same. I am cool with that.

Eva? Maria? Brickyard? The Lewiston Council on the Arts is more than that.

It is $1 water. 700 bottles sold Saturday and an equal number Sunday because $2 would make more money but $1 would make more happy.

A few things were different. Eva, either intentionally or by happenstance, had stayed away. We saw her a bit ago at the member reception the council hosted before the Buffalo Philharmonic concert at Academy Park. She had not scorned the council but taken a step back to let Maria and the new team find its way. I did not speak to her. I did sense peace, and relief.

Sunday as we volunteered, we saw how the LCOA had evolved. It wasn’t one new vendor but several as we made the rounds viewing booths and speaking to artists. Oh sure, Brickyard still had the same barbecue which is neither overpriced nor mediocre.

As we worked with Michelle Kratz, Susan Hake, Mike Kratz, Georgia Bradberry and others, something seemed different. It started with a friendly gentleman at the booth telling me the jury had done a better job screening participants.

“It is much better this year,” he said before telling a strange joke we didn’t get.

I thanked him kindly but thought he was perhaps daft. You know, the journalistic maxim, “trust but verify”.

When our volunteer shift ended, Beth and I made our rounds (time for the verify portion.) We kept noticing different vendors we hadn’t seen before.

One of the first who was new, fun and different for us was the husband and wife team of Magen and Dylan Pratt presenting “Wood & Water Artistry” carved, realistic pendants featuring damsel flies, honey bees and flowers. Magen paints. Dylan carves, delicately and with a chainsaw. They came from Attica and were exhibiting for the first time in Lewiston. I remember Dylan’s dad 30 years ago carving at Antique World when I was Clarence Bee editor.

I like to joke about ink in the veins being incurable and also hereditary. My son Joe likely contracted it from me. Dylan got trapped in sawdust by his dad. Their unique pieces are not cheap. $50 for a wooden pendant on a brass chain seems expensive but you don’t understand how long it takes to design, carve, sand and paint each piece. I will never dicker with an artist over their worth.

Further along we came to another whimsical artist selling shirts emblazoned with fantastical, thoughtful images in primary colors. We contemplated purchasing from French Pressley – prices were fair and the images were cool. Ultimately we passed over concern the painted image might be hot.

I admit being fussy about shirts. For example, last summer’s LCOA shirt had a great image celebrating Lewiston architecture but the design on the front made it too hot. I wore it once. I also have trouble finding comfortable tie dye shirts for one of the tour companies I work for because inexpensive cotton shirts just aren’t comfortable. It’s why I usually wear Kuhl hiking shirts, preferably with snaps.

Anyway, we pressed on for our annual visit for arancini from Casa Antica. We arrived to find the line blocking Center Street aligned north/south. A year ago Maria asked us to help shift it east/west. Our shift was over but I still did it because why not leave the line better than you found it?

I am a certified cat-herder, at least from my experience as a tour guide. People never go where you want and are sometimes crabby. I don’t know why Casa Antica tastes better as street food than as a sit-down dinner. It just does.

Onward we grabbed Sweet Melody’s gelato, great stuff.

Grinding forth, we found Brian Hugick selling pottery made in Hamburg. His wares were beautiful, functional, handmade. We have a collection of carefully curated coffee mugs in our kitchen. Beth likes them slightly smaller. I need a certain kind of handle, and a bigger volume. Whenever we see a new vendor, we check their mugs, and speak to them. Sometimes their mugs are perfect and they are charming, like Junko McGee. Other times they aren’t quite right.

It’s like buying meat. We are at the point where we prefer to buy meat from Thyme’s Right Farm, or Thompson Farms, maybe Becken on Upper Mountain Road. Know your farmer, know your food. Know your potter. Remember them when you drink coffee.

Hugick’s mugs were not perfect for us, but his work was fairly priced. He had beautiful bowls. He worried about two that hadn’t come out of the kiln perfectly. Potters are sometimes like women looking at their hair saying they don’t like it today – to the rest of us, it looks beautiful.

We lifted that beautiful bowl with the red-toned glaze and contemplated if it would replace the tired Pfalzgraff serving bowl with the chipped rim we have always disliked but were waiting to replace at an estate sale by Rich Pysz when we could get a crazy good deal.

As we stood, and contemplated, Hugick sized things up.

“Are you guys volunteers?” he asked, as he looked at our matching shirts.

“Yes, we just finished our shift,” Beth said.

“Thank you for volunteering. This is the best run, most organized art show I have ever vended at. I am so happy to be here for the first time. I serve on several boards and I volunteer. I know how hard it is.”

Then he did something we didn’t see coming. He sold us that bowl we had admired for an estate sale price. And it got better when we arrived home and realized he slipped a bottle of black garlic salt into the package.

Maybe he was planning to bless a volunteer and we won the lottery. Maybe it was a bad hair day. We may never know. I already told 10 people and everyone who read this far. “Quality Art at Reasonable Prices”.

I made a point of stopping to visit with Don King, Polly’s son but a giant of a man who is somehow still standing with his wife Betty as a role model for us all, reminding us what it means to be forgiving, committed, grateful and to enjoy art.

Moving on, we encountered Katie Gasiecki of KFish designs, vending high-quality jewelry, a retired Clarence educator. Beth spent a long-time deciding on earrings that would have been out of our budget but Hugick made it possible because we have a budget and believe in paying it forward.

Everything about the art festival, from the indigenous folks by the Gazebo to the rice balls, and even the 60th anniversary t-shirts that had symbolic significance I did not quite understand was special. Oh yes, and the design was improved because, just like the Doug Mess design of maybe four years ago, it will make it into my regular rotation.

Heck, we even got roped into a selfie by Maria at the photo booth set up for the Festival. I still expect Ian Kinney and Better Off Read to be the best festival in Lewiston this summer, Labor Day weekend, but you know, opinions are like people. No two are the same and if you think the Art Festival is better, I won’t argue. Congratulations to Maria Fortuna, the Lewiston Council on the Arts, the volunteers and the vendors.

There is a reason multiple vendors told me this is their favorite show and you are it.