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Press Releases and Other Publicity

These pictures are from my latest show at
The Scarlet Macaw Gallery in Sawyer, MI.

galleryshow.jpg

This article was in the September 11, 2007 issue of the South Bend Tribu
 

Last sigh of summer

Sawyerfest small event this year

By KATE SHERIDAN
Tribune Correspondent
Youngsters love the magical look of these colorful, handmade flower fairy wands on display during this year's Sawyerfest. Artist Bronwyn Campbell makes the wands from baked polymer clay and wood, hand-painting and bejeweling each one.
Tribune Photos/KATE SHERIDAN
SAWYER -- Sawyer's last gasp of summer was barely audible this year.
"More of a last sigh" is how one Sawyerfest exhibitor put it during the recent modest celebration of this tiny community's arts and commercial district.
Still, those who attended could go home with everything from an armful of fresh flowers from Sawyer Garden Center to a golden-flecked goddess scarf from Goddess Treasures to a bejeweled pair of bona fide gossamer-like fairy wings from the Pooka Fairy Studio.
The Catherine Doll clothing shop in the old Sawyer Fire Station offered visitors the only sidewalk sale in the festival this year. Also absent were the food vendors, street barbecues and wandering musicians so familiar to fest-goers in the past.
"Last gasp? It's more of a last sigh," said Bronwyn Campbell, whose Pooka Fairy Studio was one of two exhibits at this tiny village's annual Sawyerfest. "But I'm sure next year, we'll be back with the food, music and sidewalk sales we used to have."
The Marcellus artist was introduced to Sawyerfest after her art show, "The Goddess Within" opened at The Scarlet Macaw three years ago. She specializes in the whimsical, colorful art of "fairies, goddesses and celestials" as well as a line of handcrafted accessories.
Drawing her inspiration from her 8-year-old granddaughter, Pooka, Campbell designs and crafts wings and wands, along with Celtic coloring books, bookmarks and a wide assortment of prints.
Her fellow exhibitor, Debra Clark of Goddess Treasures, said this year's festival was scaled back because of unexpected time demands that tied the hands of several of Sawyerfest's former organizers. In addition, the Ramblin' Rose tavern -- once home to festival-food smells -- went out of business earlier this year.

Fairy wings, wands and art prints were just a few of the handcrafted offerings by artist Bronwyn Campbell in her booth at this year's Sawyerfest. She's the proprietress of Pooka Fairy Studio in her home in Marcellus.
"I've had some health problems myself this year, but I'm thinking about helping get things together for next year," said Clark, who runs Goddess Treasures out of her Buchanan home.
Her daughter Amanda, 15, a freshman at River Valley High School, helped name the business more than five years ago and now works with her mom at shows and fairs, she said.
The pair specialize in "everything for goddesses," including art prints, jewelry, toe-rings, handmade scented candles, goddess scarves, key-chains, magnets and jewelry boxes.
Perfect weather and easy parking along Sawyer Road still brought a steady stream of visitors to the block-long event.
"It's a lot quieter this year, but we don't mind the quiet," said Mona Amandour, of Chicago and Lakeside. She and husband Ben were making a quick stop in Sawyer on their way to a holiday cookout in St. Joseph.
"We've been to the art fair in Harbert already today, and thought we'd stop here to pick up a few things for the grandkids," she added.
"Small and quiet" typifies Sawyer most of the year, as the unincorporated village itself has barely 300 residents. The original Sawyerfest went by a variety of names and was an offshoot of the community's earliest days, when open-air produce markets and woodworking shops lined the narrow lane leading through the downtown area of what was then an agricultural and lumber-milling town.
For about four decades beginning in the 1920s, residents and nearby farmers came together at the end of each summer season to sell their homegrown wares to the waves of summer resorters who usually headed home from beachfront cottages or from day trips to Warren Dunes State Park on Labor Day weekend.
But in recent years, the event is typically an end-of-season celebration of the arts-and-crafts lifestyle that characterizes Chikaming Township's burgeoning second-home waterfront population.
"We enjoy it, even when it's just the two of us," Campbell noted. "And we'll both be back next year, crowd or not."