Artful interpretation: residents enjoy 37th annual art fair
By DANA HERRA – dherra@daily-chronicle.com
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| Zachary Bordron, 2, of Copenhagen, Denmark, examines a metal garden sculpture Sunday at the Art at Ellwood art fair and sale in DeKalb. Sculptor John Challand of Malta uses old parts from farm equipment to build his whimsical birds. |
DeKALB – As Shirley Pavelich of Sycamore walked away from an artisan booth at the Art at Ellwood art fair Sunday, people kept stopping her to ask where she'd gotten the shiny steel flowers and butterfly in her hands. She gestured back to the booth of Jerry and Jacque Crable of Burlington, Iowa.
"I'll end up selling these for her," Pavelich joked after pointing more customers toward the booth. "I'll have to come back and ask for commission."
The Crables were among about 80 artists displaying their creations Sunday afternoon at the 37th annual art fair and sale on the lawn of the historic Ellwood House in DeKalb. The hundreds who browsed the fair throughout the day admired paintings, metalwork, wood carvings, ceramics, jewelry, glass, cabinetry and fabric arts like batiks and homemade clothes.
"I'm enjoying the fair very much," DeKalb resident Carol Schroeder said. "We come every year."
Schroeder purchased a large wooden bowl from wood turner Roger Foster of Rockford. The bowl, made of Russian olive wood, will be a gift for Schroeder's son, she said, because he played beneath a Russian olive tree as a child.
Many of the unique art pieces have their own stories. The Crables used to travel to art fairs to sell small clay figurines Jacque made, she said. Her husband looked at the popular wooden sculptures selling at many of the fairs and thought he could make the same thing out of metal.
"He went in the garden and pulled up an iris," Jacque Crable recalled. "He stuck it in a pop bottle, messed around with the pattern til he had one he liked, then made it. We've been making them ever since."
The whimsical metal creations of John Challand of Malta have a similar backstory. Challand, who grew up on a farm, had always thought a certain small combine part looked like the head of a bird, he said. He attached one to a long spring, then created a metal body of other discarded parts and tools. Few of the youngest passers-by Sunday were able to resist stopping to look at the flock of artfully rusted birds nodding their heads in the breeze at Challand's booth.
"These things attract kids," he said. "I used to do farmers markets. For about six years, I sold these and plants. Every year I started selling more of these and fewer plants, and eight years ago I gave up the farmers markets altogether and just started the art fair circuit."
