News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Steve Dahm plays his lunch box guitar at the Harvest Faire.
Jim Barton of Pudding River Wood Carving works on a huge piece of redwood root.
The economy may be sliding into a recession, but you'd never know it from the hoard of shoppers who turned out on Saturday to visit the Sisters Harvest Faire.
The weather cooperated; it was a crisp but clear fall day, perfect for wandering the booths and sampling the wares of crafters and artists from all around the Pacific Northwest.
Sunday was a little slower, but still reflected a brisk trade up and down the closed-off Hood Avenue and into Barclay Park.
Sisters Area Chamber of Commerce Events Coordinator Jeri Buckmann said the event was going well and that vendors seemed pleased with the turnout.
A consistent crowd gathered around the tent of Steve Dahm of Bonehead Music Co.
Dahm, a Bend resident, sat picking a homemade "lunchbox guitar" built on a Dukes of Hazzard lunch box. Dahm ran a copper slide up and down the three strings on the guitar neck, coaxing out swampy blues pushed through a tiny amplifier.
Dahm, an engineer by trade, has launched a business in making "cigar-box guitars" and "can-jos" in a time-honored American folk tradition. The instruments are eminently playable and sound primitive, but good, an authentic slice of Americana.
"I'm just getting started," said Dahm, who took Best of Show in last weekend's Bend Fall Festival. "I have big plans."
He plans on adding fiddles and ukuleles to his mix and he is interested in doing outreach into the schools to teach children how to make their own instruments with materials at hand - just the way people used to make them in 19th-century America.
"When I'm not building them or playing them, I'm looking for interesting things to put on them," said Dahm of his unique collection. "All the guitars have their own unique sound."
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Elsewhere, art aficionados were raving about the work of Montana wood carver Stephen Fracul, who creates magnificent wildlife sculptures in walnut, burl wood and elm.
One piece featured the face of a mountain man "dreaming of the old days" surrounded by images of wildlife.
There were spices and scarves, native jewelry and funny hats - everything that makes a Harvest Faire a unique and enjoyable feature of the season.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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