Festival Season 2012: visting the Fairy Lake Artisan's Festival

Last Sunday I drove 20 or so  minutes north to Newmarket and the Fairy Lake Artisan's Festival. I knew two local artists exhibiting there and I wondered if I would know anyone else. Looking up info about the show I found out it's 15 years old. That's usually a pretty good sign.
As it turned out, there were artisans from out of town and that is another sign of a decent show. You don't travel for nothing.
Or you hope so anyway.
I recognized Out of Ruins, an Ottawa fused glass company and The Funky Clothesline, a tie-dye clothing company,  both have been around about a decade.
I remember when each of them started doing shows.
The fact that I saw artisans from out of town told me something about the calibre of this show. I've only lived here a little over a year and I had no idea this was going on or I probably would have applied to be there. But that's ok too, as this is my summer of visiting shows in the area, shows I've always wanted to see like Muskoka and Haliburton, which were just that-much-too-far from me when I lived in Ottawa to leisurely drive there for a visit. And then there are other shows like The Purple Turtle Art Festival  and the Eaglewood Folk Festival which are nearby and completely unknown to me. 

First signage for Fairy Lake show on Bayview in Newmarket

It was a relief to see the first sign telling me I am in the right place. The day after the market I am kind of a basket case so this sort of directional marker is very welcome.

cops at the entrance to the show directing traffic: peds, canines and cars

Walking over to the show I kept passing big clumps of people, almost crowd-like, and when I reached where I had to cross I was astounded to see traffic cops directing all manner of traffic. Was this show that busy, I wondered?

security at the entrance to turn away would-be car-parkers no doubt

This security volunteer guy was like a military sentry. He never wavered while executing his Duty..

this is Fairy Lake in Newmarket, Ontario

Fairy Lake turns out to be a real lake afterall, not just a lets-put-a-water-feature-in-town-for-the-tourists kind of thing. They are rehabilitating the shoreline and further down, past the show itself I came across people fishing. I plan to go back there and set a while over the summer.

welcome

Very bright and bold sign exorting us to ENJOY! OK.

booths

The show was bigger than I thought it would be.

more booths

In fact it went on

and more booths

and on.

The level of artisanal work was pretty high. Seemed like the first day of the two day show was the best as it dove-tailed with the Newmarket Farmer's Market on Saturday. The crowds were huge I was told and people were buying things. On the Sunday the sky threatened to open up and the air was heavy and humid. It was a strolling-by day. I did take a few business cards myself and if my year continues to progress well I hope to get something very special made in the fall.

ATM on wheels; looks crafty!  Who wouldn't want a trailer like this?

The ATM cracked me up. This set-up on wheels just looked so do-able but imagine what you'd have to do to actually do this? I met someone ages ago who was one of the first guys to bring ATMs to events. It was such a novelty, but none of his were as stylish as this little number. I would have liked to have seen an airstream trailer beside it.

bye bye