The Lake George Arts and Crafts Festival opened this Friday July 29 for the second year at the Festival Commons in Wood Park. The event features more than 125 juried fine arts and crafts exhibitors selling handmade jewelry, clothing, crafts, gourmet food, craft beverages and more.
This is a family event with bounce houses and pony rides for the kids. On-site food trucks offer a variety of dining options, including Thai food, wood-fired pizzas, donuts and ice cream. The Lake George Arts & Crafts Festival features live music on stage under the dining tent. The festival, a production of Craftproducers of Vermont, runs through Sunday, July 31, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day.
Exhibitor Connie Snyder, working as a Lilac Hill Designs, brought his unique recycled wool creations to the festival. Snyder repurposes used clothing to make handbags, backpacks, purses and eyeglass cases. She also makes memorial garments, items sewn from a piece of clothing that belonged to a loved one who has died. “I’ve done a lot of commemorative commissions for military uniforms,” he says, and uses every part of the uniform, including the silk lining and name tags to commemorate service members.
Wool accessories created by Connie Snyder, Lilac Hill Designs, repurposes used clothing
Wayne Hankins, inventor of the Jubo, a four-hole flute/whistle, played cheerful tunes about his invention to attract festival-goers as they passed his booth. The Jubo, says Hankins, “has the lowest learning curve of any melodic instrument in the world.” Although easy to learn, he claims anyone can learn to play the scale in five minutes, the small instrument, which sounds similar to a pan flute, can produce complex melodies. Each Jubo is sold with a lanyard so musicians can wear the instrument in a circular fashion as a pendant.
Wayne Hankin demonstrates how to play Jubo.
Other artisans participating in the Lake George Arts & Crafts Festival include Steven B. Levine of Dayton, New Jersey, who crafts hardwood boxes with closed compartments designed to look like books, Nurit Bland of Sew Designed, who turns her fiber art in jackets to wear and shrug and Eileen Russell of Albany, who crafts cutting boards, pepper mills, bow knives and other kitchen staples from hardwoods.
Admission to the festival is $7 for a day pass, $10 on the weekend. Children 14 and over are free. Metered parking ($2 per hour) is available on surrounding streets and in public parking lots. Craft producers will return to the Lake George Festival Commons August 19-21 with the Lake George Music and BBQ Festival.
Photos: Lake George Arts & Crafts Festival 2022
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