Walking through the Sugarloaf Crafts Festival?s 38,000 square feet of fine crafts, you can easily get overwhelmed ? if you don?t heed sculptor Michael Terra?s advice.
“I would encourage people to think about the show in the same way they think about visiting a museum,” he said. “You don?t not look at the Mona Lisa carefully because you have another three and a half miles of the Louvre to look at. Disregard the compulsion to see everything before you stop at one [vendor.] If you?re goal is to see everything, you?ll see nothing. Mathematically, you just can?t do it. ”
Expecting to draw about 20,000, the Festival in its 30th year boasts more than 350 handpicked vendors.
During the gigantic show, an artist will be at each booth to answer questions about materials and processes, said Deann Verdier, Founder of the Sugarloaf Crafts Festival. “When you buy a piece here, you?re taking a part of the artist home.”
During artists demonstrations, artists will walk attendees through their technical processes, revealing the time, skill, effort and integrity put into each handmade piece of art. Artists will forge iron, blow glass, weave baskets, spin metal and carve stone.
For the first time live on site, Terra, a favorite of Maryland, Virginia and D.C. art enthusiasts, will make three-dimensional caricatures of the Festival?s attendees.
“A lot of people have seen potters sitting at a wheel spinning clay,” Terra said. “What I do is start with a lump of clay and totally hand build the shape ? bowls, mugs and fantastical face shapes.”
Sugarloaf?s loyal following brings Baltimore hatmaker, Melissa Wahnbaeck, back to the show for her ninth year, she said. “There?s not a lot of us left who make everything themselves, but that?s what the original spirit of the craft movements when it started 30 years ago. It was about getting back to basics, away from mass produced, and I see a resurgence of that spirit again.”
“People interpret the words ?arts and crafts? as a hobby, but when they come out and see the quality of work, it surprises them,” Verdier said.
IF YOU GO
30th Annual Sugarloaf Crafts Festival
Where: Maryland State Fairgrounds, 2200 York Road, Timonium
When: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. today; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday
Ticket: $7 in advance; $8 at the door; children under 12 free
Info: 1-800-210-9900,
