Art in the park brings creative variety

Last Saturday and Sunday Creekside Park was filled with white tents and talented artists displaying their handcrafted goods at Art in the Park. The showcase of arts and crafts spread across the park grass, drawing in scores of folks to enjoy more than 85 vendor booths. The annual event, in its 16th year, was the perfect added attraction for visitors to enjoy during rodeo weekend in Sisters.

Folks strolled through an eclectic variety of craftmanship from metal art and vintage buttons to handmade earrings from recycled bullet casings.

Lisa Sophia, an artist based in Seaside, was enjoying her first year at the annual event.

"I quit the day job and decided to see if I could sell my art," Sophia said. "I've been painting in acrylics for about 25 years and ran my own professional photo studio also."

In the last few years she's been dabbling in computer art.

"I take my photos and do color studies on the computer using Photoshop," she said. "It helps me work at layers, colors and texture. I then paint an original in acrylic from my color studies."

Sophia is part owner and displays her artwork at Gilbert District Gallery in Seaside.

When three artistic longtime friends, who met while in college, get together to showcase their goods you have an eclectic variety of handcrafted artwork that folks were thrilled to browse through.

Peggy Glascock from Portland machine-quilts trivets, Mary Rioux-Forker from Sisters transfers her watercolors to tempered glass cutting boards, and Carol Milliman from Eugene crafts glass-infused earrings.

"We've all stayed friends over the years after we met in college because our boyfriends were friends," Glascock said laughing. "We also brought Carol's friend Louise Botterill from Eugene with us this trip to display her hand-drawn mandala cards in pen and ink."

Art in the Park offered something for all ages and interests - including live music, food, and the Family Fun Zone.

Many new vendors offered imaginative and unique goods for sale, and one of them was Maria Winner from Salem.

Winner, owner of Material Things, sells vintage silk kimonos that she refashions into skirts, vests, jackets and more.

"These are retired kimonos from Japan," Winner told The Nugget. "I've been doing shows for only six months but have done trunk shows before and had home parties. My trips to Japan began when I became the head chaperone for young exchange students going from one of the elementary schools in Portland to Japan."

Folks come buzzing around when there's pure honey in a variety of flavors to sample. Beekeeper Tanya Rudometkin from Christmas Valley had loads of flavors to satisfy anyone's palate.

After years of beekeeping Rudometkin has up to 300 hives all over the area. There's blackberry honey from the Willamette Valley, maple honey from Silverton Hills, white clover honey from La Pine and much more.

"I took classes and started with just six hives the first year," she said. "It turned into a passion. Bees are beautiful to watch and so calming for me."

Visitors and vendors tapped their feet to musical entertainment by Scott Brown, who plays a little bit of everything. In between Brown's sets you could hear soothing harmonic tones produced by singing bowls coming from Taryn Balthazor's tent.

Singing bowls, usually made of brass, have a number of traditional uses throughout India and Nepal. Their tones are often used as a part of religious worship in Buddhist temples, and they may be rung at home to prepare the mind for meditation.

"I ordered these bowls from India because I'm really interested in the science of sound," said Balthazor. "And I will be selling the bowls eventually. Right now, I'm just playing around with the tones and trying to show people more about the power of sound."

Balthazor was actually selling tie-dye cotton clothing that she designed.

"I'm just learning about the designing end of tie-dying cotton clothing. I work with a team and we all come up different designs," she said.

Event organizer Richard Esterman was happy to see the rodeo crowds stopping at the park to check out the vendors.

"It's one of the first events of the season, and it's a chance for people to get out and browse through crafts and the many new art vendors that are here this year," he said.