TheBanyanTree: State Fair

[Deb Frost]

Nancy,
Your description sounds exactly like our Alaska State Fair! Aren't State
Fairs great?! 

Here in south central Alaska, along with all the wonderful things you've
already mentioned <g>, there is the addition of wonderful individual booths
of "Made in Alaska" arts and crafts (exhibits, sales and demos), a huge
building containing wood-working, spinning, amateur painting & photography,
hand-crafts (quilting, cross-stitch, embroidery, sewing, felting, spinning
(hand-spun skeins of yarn), hand-dyed or "painted" fibers, basketry, etc. -
children's exhibits right alongside adult exhibits with the ribbons given on
the basis of age and years of experience (or lack there of <g>) rather than
*just* quality (although those fantastic, unbelievably top QUALITY projects
sure do get their due and are high-lighted) - and over a hundred lovely
hand-made quilts hang overhead throughout the building every year! 

There are blacksmithing demos (decorative wrought iron and metal ART) every
day with a real glowing orange hot forge and anvils, chain saw carving, a
"Dirtiest Carharts Overalls" competition <g>, a "Duct Tape" outfit contest,
a Hog-calling contest followed by Husband-calling contest <L>, several goat
shows as well as the usual livestock shows and 4H Market Animal Auction,
etc. etc. Hey, and we grow some of the BIGGEST Pumpkins and Cabbages in the
world up here! <G>

This year the Alaskan Arts Alliance set up an "All Alaskan Arts" building
where they not only displayed a big variety of very *different* art forms
all made in Alaska by Alaskan artists; many of them featuring Alaskan
subjects (paintings, photography, weaving, sculpture, pottery, ivory carving
done by Alaskan natives, etc.), but every day they also feature several
"live" artists actually doing demos of their art (this is all in one
homey-feeling old "log house" type building) - talking to fair-goers as they
wander through the many rooms of the building and answering questions. 

Yesterday (for example) they had a glass blower, a water color artist and a
carver who cuts and carves intricate Alaskan scenarios into cleaned and
polished moose antlers! Amazing! I get to join them today with a "spinning"
demo. I'll be spinning my own "Alaska-grown" kid mohair fleece and will have
samples on hand of all stages of the process from photos of the animal (her
name is "Sprite" <smile>), a piece of the raw unprocessed fleece, washed and
carded mohair and a skein of the finished, hand-dyed 2-ply yarn. I'll also
have on display skeins of yarn that I've made from a variety of different
"fiber" types, from various breeds of sheep, alpaca, llama, DOG fur <g>
(hey, we have two Great Pyrenees and a long-haired house dog) and some
hand-dyed fiber rovings. I'll also have a small table displaying my
fiber/metal art, my small, old-style back strap weaving loom and some small
example pieces of copper fold-forming, copper weaving (thin strips of
light-weight copper woven into designs with the colors created by using
different patinas. The idea is to show how I combine my two favorite "arts"
- fiber and copper working. I'm currently working on a wall hanging that
combines fiber weaving with copper weaving - it's unfinished but will be on
display so people can see the process. It's going to be a long
afternoon/evening, but I'm looking forward to it. 

Anyone coming to Alaska on vacation should definitely hit the State Fair in
Palmer if timing permits <smile>. It's always the last week of August and
first week of September!

Cheers,
-Deb (Snowy) in AK

--
Deb Frost / Snowgoose
Spring Promise Pygmies, Wasilla AK
http://www.springpromisepygmies.com/
snowgoose at mtaonline.net

> A lot of states have a State Fair. I know in Florida they have one, but  
those people don't know how to put on a State Fair.  It's a collection of
venders 
and food booths and rides and ring toss games.   Minnesota and  Iowa both 
know how to put on a class act State Fair, and this past weekend, I  went to
the 
Minnesota State Fair, twelve days of crowds and fun and noise and  fattening

food on a stick.
 
Pigs, giving birth, the largest boar, at something near half a ton, cows,  
bulls, cows giving birth, horse shows, turkey legs and mini donuts, rides
and a  
midway, competition for gardeners, the biggest pumpkin, the best tomatoes,  
butter carving, grandstand shows with country stars, cotton candy, cow poop
in  
the street, someone's prize goat getting away and running amok, DNR 
conservation  building with demonstrations, sheep bars, pig barns, poultry
barns, my  
granddaughter's rabbit among a thousand other rabbits, a million people,  
builders, machinery hill, dust, art building with quilts and clothing, crop

displays,  a building with home improvement booths and information,
political 
booths, and a traffic jam coming and going that boggles the  mind.
 
And, that's only the beginning.
 
I walked miles, ate way too much, stayed way too late, got way too much  
sunburn and grit, had a blast, and want to go again.