FASHION : Handicraft Fairs Offer Fine Arts, Homespun Crafts : The street festival in Ventura is the largest and will offer the diverse creations of some 500 vendors.
About this time of year, handcrafts come into their own. December is National Nostalgia Month, although congressional oversight has left this designation unofficial--and it’s not likely that the Republicans are going to be into correcting the problem.
So, it’s up to crafters to carry on without formal recognition of their aims--providing satisfaction for the craft-driven at a time when folk art has wide appeal.
Upcoming holiday craft fairs will make that easy. There’s no lack of artisans in the area, nor venues for their talents.
The biggest of them all, the Holiday Street Festival, will descend on Main Street in Ventura on Dec. 4, giving the Ventura Police Department its best opportunity of the year to practice public relations under stress.
Almost 500 craft vendors will be there, spilling over onto side streets and staging a quiet rebellion against the Industrial Revolution. If you can’t fulfill your craft needs here, you need more help than we can give you.
The fair is not juried and has grown to include a range of items from fine arts to homespun crafts, drawing from a variety of traditions.
One of the more unusual is Native American crafts made by Eydie and Bill Noll of Newbury Park. The couple, who formerly worked in professional sales, now make a living creating ceremonial fans and pipes, authentic medicine wheels and dream-catchers.
The dream-catcher, a framework decorated with feathers, glass beads and deerskin, was traditionally hung by the sleeping place to keep evil spirits from entering dreams. Such a piece was the inspiration for their business.
“I had gotten one for Bill, and I brought it home, and he said, ‘You know, I’ve done those before,’ ” Eydie recalled. “I said, ‘What do you mean, you’ve done them before?’ and he said, ‘I just feel like I’ve done that; I know how to do them.’
“I said OK and just fluffed it off. The next morning, I woke up and he had one made--that was six years ago, and he hasn’t stopped since.”
Another fair craft borrowed from religious tradition is the Mexican luminaria . According to custom, the candleholders were placed in yards as symbols of light to guide the three kings to the Christ Child.
Handmade luminarias will be offered by potter Xavier Gonzales of Sherman Oaks, who will be making his third trip to the fair.
“I kill them there with those luminaria s,” he said, adding that hand-cut, silhouetted clay work is rare because of the demands of the process.
But Gonzales has found an unusual source for cutting implements. “I walk along the gutters of the street and pick up broken street sweeper blades,” he said. “The steel they use is really strong stuff.”
Most customers buy his candleholders for patio use or to hold indoor aromatic candles. The potter also offers crystalline-glazed art pieces, and functional bowls and pots.
Alongside such professionals at the fair will be weekend hobbyists. Eraina Ann Taylor, a medical secretary from Ventura, is making her fair debut this year with child-size muslin tepees.
The tepees are four feet on a side at the base and have frames that make them free-standing for inside or outside play. Taylor made one up as a gift for a friend’s children in the spring and has been swamped with orders ever since.
“It’s grown and grown, and I thought maybe I’ll try the street fair,” she said, “I’m having a hard time getting enough of them made up.”
Another part-time crafter, Melanie Garrett, a realtor’s assistant from Vista, will be offering felt reindeer antlers on headbands at a booth she shares with her sister, Sherman Blench.
Longtime crafters, the women have shown their jewelry at various fairs for several years. The antlers “are by and large the most fun thing we’ve ever carried,” Garrett said. “‘We’ve sold them to firemen, bus drivers. Nurses and teachers are among our best customers.”
Even when not promoting their craft items, the sisters often like to wear antlers, Garrett said, especially when they travel to such destinations as Las Vegas or Disneyland.
“My sister and I make a bit of a madcap team,” she said.
Other items offered at the fair this year include freeze-dried vegetable wreaths, handmade skateboards, table-top topiary plants and bug barns for insect pets.
Almost any handmade item will be accepted at the event if shown by its creator, said Faye Campbell, the festival’s coordinator at the city of Ventura.
“It’s a shopping opportunity for people of all tastes and all levels of artistic ability,” she said. “I keep thinking it’s going to get out of date one of these days, but people love the street fair. I think it’s a tradition for them.”
Details
Other holiday shopping events featuring handcrafts include:
* Holiday Arts and Crafts Fair, Camarillo. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Camarillo Community Center, Carmen Drive at Burnley Street. Pleasant Valley Parks and Recreation. 482-1996.
* Victorian Holiday Boutique, Ventura. Noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, as well as Dec. 2-4 and Dec. 9-11, Historic Dudley House, North Ashwood Avenue and Loma Vista Road. San Buenaventura Heritage Assn. 654-8381.
* First Sunday in the Park, Ventura. 10 to 4 p.m. Dec. 4, 10 and 17 (includes extra Saturday sessions for December). Plaza Park, Thompson Boulevard between Chestnut Street and Fir Avenue. Ventura Parks and Recreation. 658-4742.
