Best of the Fest! Magical, Mythical Beasts!

I have to admit that I don't often have cream of crab soup for breakfast. But I did on this day! It turns out I was in good company, for all the old men were lining up for hot sausage sandwiches with sauteed onions and green peppers a booth or two down. And it was a special occasion, of course. I was making a lightning-fast visit to the People's Choice Festival in Boalsburg, hoping to get in and out before the coming rains.

The Boalsburg fest takes place in the big sunny field of the Pennsylvania Military Museum grounds, across the road from that big cemetery I love so much. (You saw and read about that cemetery here and here, among others.) When I visit, I often stop to say hello to the ladies in the statue near that graveyard, whom I think of as the three graces. The statue's true name is Honor to the Fallen, as it commemorates the first Memorial Day.

I had left work a bit before 9:30, so I arrived at Boalsburg just as the artists' booths were opening for the day. Typical July "fest weather," as we call it, is the worst of summertime: hot and sticky, often nearly 100% humidity. When the weather is like that, I do better if I tackle anything important outdoors in the morning hours.

I strolled around the booths, enjoying the variety of art on display. There are many artists whose work I see each year, with a few new ones thrown in. There is a lady whose dichroic glass earrings I admire (and usually purchase just one pair) each year, but I don't think she showed up this time, though I looked for her there.

In the middle of the big, sunny field was a petting zoo which featured llamas, alpacas, sheep, goats, huge turtles, and probably other animals I'm forgetting. As I approached them, a llama and an alpaca ran to greet me, smiling, as though I were a dear, long lost, old friend. (You may see that photo in the extras; don't you agree that they were smiling?) The funnest part was seeing the faces of tiny children as they walked up and saw the beasts for the first time: how could such amazingly strange creatures even exist!?

I always enjoy the flower display representing the work of local landscape artists, and so I stopped there to nab a few photos of a plant I had never seen before: bright red coneflower (echinacea). The display featured a few rather large, colorful fake butterflies. As I stood taking pictures, a huge dragonfly sat and took a little respite on one. It amused me so: flying critter atop flying critter! So appropriate, in so many ways.

But the best of the fest, for me, was a booth filled with really gorgeous, artistic glass creatures of all kinds. By the entrance to the booth sat a display of a very large number of tiny glass critters, not unlike my Crittergators! Well you know I had to stop and buy a half-dozen of those!

As I was paying for my new glass creatures, I asked permission to take a few photos, and they happily said yes. The photo you see above is just one wall of the display booth, filled with DRAGONS!!! If you look to the right, you may see a few witches and flying pigs as well. I am very sorry that the (absolutely charming) tiny bats were just out of frame.

A whole other wall featured amazing birds. On the table were French hook earrings with glass creatures dangling from them. Creatures in every size and color! I never even would have thought of that: glass critters not just to play with, but to WEAR!

The artist who made these amazing pieces is WGK Glass, from Toughkenamon, Pennsylvania, a place I admit that even I had never heard of. I'm including a link to the WGK Glass etsy shop so you may go and feast your eyes on some of their pieces (and maybe even buy some, if you like!).

There is a comment I want to add about visiting the fest that is a bigger-picture, more philosophical thing. It's about why I go each year, and what it means to me. I don't love the heat and humidity, but I do enjoy walking around seeing the creative things that people make.

It is inspiring, in a way, and even if all I see is stuff completely unrelated to the sort of art I make myself, it wakens up the dreaming, magical part of my soul. I get so many ideas after I've visited an event like this. My fingers twitch! My brain starts scheming! What is THAT worth? It seems sort of . . . priceless to me.

Now let's take it back to the beginning. The cream of crab soup I started this story with, I bought and ate around 10:30, as I was fully starving by then. Walking all around a grassy open field admiring works of art is apparently hard work, and a girl must keep her strength up! :-)

I was gone by 11, stopping to grab a couple of tacos at Taco Bell at Hills Plaza along the way, for a quick lunch back at my desk. It turns out the crab soup was just the warm-up appetizer. :-) I know I shouldn't, as it makes my lips tingle, but I just had to have some of that Diablo sauce on top of them (along with extra shredded cheddar I had brought from home). And so it was that my lips were hot, just like the weather!

As I drove up University Drive with my tiny bag of tacos, heading back to work, the first raindrops hit my car windshield. Whew! That was a close call! But I managed it. I did it, I did it! I made it there and back again, to the fest, before the rain!

The soundtrack for this image has to be about dragons, and I bet you can guess which one I chose! Here are Peter, Paul, and Mary, with Puff the Magic Dragon, from 1965.