Summer Campbell-Kern Valley Sun

The Kern River Valley Art Association staged its 44th annual Spring Fine Arts and Crafts Festival in Kernville's Circle Park during the Memorial Day weekend. Visitors and shoppers had a wide array of wares from which to choose, as vendors included many out-of-towners as well as locals.

The venue was packed with a plethora of knowledgeable artists, interested visitors, and some who came to enjoy the shady atmosphere and window-shop.

A visitor to the ‘fabric apple’ booth admires the interesting array of colors and texture at the 44th annual Fine Arts and Crafts Festival at Circle Park in Kernville during the three-day Memorial Day weekend.

The art on display represented a wide range of artistic styles, including everything from paintings and photographs to birdhouses and decorated gourds.

Much of the art that lined the booths had some type of historical connection to the valley's wildlife or the valley's Native American population.

Local artist Barbara Campbell's booth presented Moki Gourds whose designs were inspired by Southwest pottery and petroglyphs. Gourds were used frequently by many Indian cultures and therefore make a good historical representation of ancient artifacts, espeically when carved and embellished with native designs. The gourds offered by Campbell and other vendors took the shape of many useful items such as birdhouses and decorative masks.

Along side the Moki Gourds booth stood Gary Love's “Natural Light Photography.” Love is a professional photographer that travels the world in search of capturing nature's beauty. Love's booth displayed enormous photographs of running horses and beautiful sunsets. The booth was full of inspired viewers gazing in at the photographs from all over the United States. Love said he thinks artists should "...portray no more than what was actually before their lens at the time of the shot."

This year's fine arts festival also offered the opportunity for kids to wear an artistic creation if they chose to visit the face-painting booth. There was also a candle-making booth where children and adults lined up to make all natural soy candle creations.

Scrollsaw Portraits, a local vendor, offered various woodcarvings. For more than 30 years Scrollsaw has been carving representations of wildlife and a variety of other images into pieces of wood.

Scrollsaw is a local resident that moved from Bakersfield when he retired from Smith's Bakery about 17 years ago. A cake decorator by trade, Scrollsaw began working with wood at the age of 12. He said his woodwork has kept him busy during his retirement. "I can do it when I want to and shut things down when I'm tired,” said Scrollsaw. He carves anything from raccoons to pictures of historical figures such as Buffalo Bill Cody.

Scrollsaw also takes orders for specific characters that customers want carved. He is currently working on a tortoise, which is a first for him. He said that his carvings take anywhere from an hour to 20 hours, depending on the detail needed to accurately depict the image.

Among the booths that housed traditional art, other vendors showcased creative and fairly unusually forms of art such as painted leaves, fabric apples, rock art and wildlife woodcarvings.

A few of the artists recounted how some people often shy away from art because they think they lack sufficient “artistic ablities.” This year's annual arts and crafts festival truly showed visitors that art can be created with a varitiey of matierials. The diversity of art forms on dispaly at the festival also demonstrated that art can be inspired by, and constructed from, a person's simple interest in a particular product or medium.

Vendors with a love for fabric or sewing brought aprons that they had sewn, as well as various other fabric figurines. Others who enjoy the great outdoors drew visitors and potential buyers to their booths with displays of the artist's love of birds; many featured photographs of native species, while others included unique designs of the hand-crafted bird houses made from driftwood and other naturally found wood sources.

With the Spring Arts and crafts Festival in its 44th year, it had truly become a “must see” for visitors and valley residents. The festival continues to grow each year, offering a larger variety of artists and art forms, and continues to be a long lived, much enjoyed tradition.

Memorial Day marks the beginning of a busy tourist season in the valley, and the annual festival opens Circle Park for what will be a fun filled summer of activities.