A Folk Art Festival That Applauds Handmade Things

How do you get a ship into a bottle? What goes on inside a beehive? Where do carrousel horses or teddy bears or duck decoys come from?

The answers to these questions and more can be found Sunday at the 14th annual Festival of Folk Art in Exposition Park, from 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

“So many things are made by machines these days,” says Isabel Rosenbaum, volunteer coordinator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. “This is an opportunity to see how things can be made by hand . . . by talented craftspeople.”

Beekeepers Wayne Hogancamp and Bill Montgomery will be busy again this year manning their observation beehives, showing honeybees at work through a glassed-in hive. The bees always stir up a lot of interest at the festival, says Hogancamp, who is participating for his fourth year.

“You see them in their actual conditions,” he said. “They’re always busy, cleaning the hive . . . or maybe the queen is laying eggs.”

One chore the bees won’t do is collect nectar, so visitors are assured they can look and won’t be touched. For a taste of the rewards of beekeeping, honey produced by Hogancamp’s bees will be available at the festival.

Like other exhibitors at the show, the beekeepers will answer questions and display their beekeeping tools, and inform others how to take up the hobby.

“Just like anything else,” Hogancamp says, “you should learn about them first. You need the knowledge to manage them and to care for them. People should attend meetings, go to the library and learn about them before they get into it.”

And the Festival of Folk Art is a good place to start educating yourself--not only about a potential hobby, but also on how everyday items can be made by hand. About 75 crafters will offer tidbits of information about their work, along with examples and a little history about the craft.

What Hogancamp will tell you is that bees are one of the few creatures to produce more (honey) than they consume, and that bees are extremely important to California agriculture.

“You can’t raise much fruit without bees,” Hogancamp says. “All the spraying gets rid of a lot of the other pollinating insects. California has to bring in bees from all over the Western states during pollination season.”

And the hobbyists can also tell you where to start if you are interested in trying a craft yourself. Hogancamp says gathering bees is as simple as ordering them through a Sears catalogue, which will mail the bees and the equipment you need.

Other crafts at the festival range from furniture making and ceramics to calligraphy and creating a musket-loading rifle.

“We try to have one specific example of each type of craft,” Rosenbaum said. For instance: “We have all kinds of weaving, but they’re all done with different kinds of looms and techniques.”

The crafters will set up shop in booths throughout Exposition Park and in the Natural History Museum foyer.

Take a break from soaking up all the information and enjoy the food and entertainment, which includes Jim Gamble and His Marionettes, the Sweet Adelines and miniature-train rides through the park.

Admission to the Festival of Folk Art and the Natural History Museum, 900 Exposition Blvd., South-Central Los Angeles, is free on Sunday. Information: (213) 744-3341.