A Community Shows Its Craft

One baby boomer protested Vietnam, didn’t inhale when he smoked pot and went on to work in the White House. Steve Powers dropped out of college in 1969 to do leather work and went on to make a living selling his crafts.

“I made leather belts, much to the dismay of my parents,” said the director of the Los Angeles County Craft Festival this weekend in Pomona.

He first organized a show with some friends. “Down in San Diego, there were not a lot of craft fairs at the time,” he said. “A couple of buddies and I got together in ’75 and said, ‘Let’s put on a little crafts show.’ ”

Powers, 44, gave up leather work in 1979 and sold advertising for radio stations for a couple of years. By 1981, he was running craft shows as a full-time business. “It’s my job to get all these craft people together and finance the thing,” he said.

He and his crew will be putting up about 200 booths this weekend for the crafters, as they are called in the business. “There’s actually a pretty big community out there making a living with this stuff,” Powers said. “It ranges . . . from country stuff to fine sculpture. It’s a pretty full spectrum.”

There will, of course, be leather work, fine pottery, handmade jewelry in gold and silver, wood sculpture and furniture. “Everything in the crafts business is geared toward adornment or for the home,” Powers said. “We’re pretty strict on who gets in the show” to keep out manufacturers. “We try and keep it a true handcrafted show.”

A weekend adult pass costs $5 for the event in Fairplex 4, Los Angeles County Fairgrounds at White and McKinley avenues. Children ages 6 to 16 get in for $1. The show opens at 11 a.m. Friday and 10 a.m. Saturday and Sunday. It closes at 6 p.m. all three days.