Hometown Fair Offers First-Class Arts And Crafts

There’s something sinful about the annual arts and crafts fair that Sandpoint has put on for the past 24 years.

Sandpoint itself is so pretty, what with the mountains and Lake Pend Oreille so close by, that adding a firstrate arts fair seems a little like aesthetic overkill.

No wonder writer John Villani, author of “100 Best Small Arts Towns in America,” has listed Sandpoint in both editions of his book.

No wonder, too, that folks there like to get involved.

“You just can’t say enough about the volunteer spirit in this area,” says Ginnie Robideaux. “It’s phenomenal.”

Robideaux is one of the few nonamateurs involved in the event, which will be held Saturday and Sunday in Sandpoint’s beach-side park. As executive director of the Pend Oreille Arts Council, the fair’s sponsoring entity, Robideaux depends on city residents to do everything from set up the 100 artists’ booths to clean up when the event ends on Sunday evening.

In between, she is depending on fair-goers to help fill the POAC coffers.

“This is the main fund-raiser for the arts council,” she says. “We do year-round performing and visual arts and art-education programs, and we subsidize everything we do ticketwise so that people here can afford our concerts.”

What those fair-goers experience won’t be unlike two of the region’s other main arts fairs, Spokane’s ArtFest and Coeur d’Alene’s Art on the Green.

Yet it is distinctive, too, having been listed by author Villani in the June issue of Art Business News as one of nine such fairs across the country “to watch.”

It begins, of course, with the arts and crafts. Robideaux stresses that each of the 100 booths will be filled with “quality hand-made items.”

“It has to be made by the exhibitor,” she says. “You can’t ship it in from Mexico and sell it here.”

She adds that those items will bear a distinctly Idaho look, with at least a quarter of them filled with the works of Bonner County artists, including such Sandpoint names as Ward Tollbom (painter), Patricia Barclay (glass artist), Tim Thomas and Rocky Rockwell (sculptors).

Area musicians will be on hand to provide entertainment, much of which is provided free. A local dance studio will even perform a children’s dance recital.

“It’s like a real hometown celebration,” Robideaux says.

And, of course, there will be food booths. Look for German sausage, barbecue sandwiches and bean burritos (for non-meat eaters).

Add all that to a hands-on art booth for children, a couple of raffles (one offering a Steven Lyman poster as a prize) and arts items for sale ranging from hand-made paper to home-made furniture, and this year’s POAC Arts and Crafts Fair is likely something arts-lovers won’t want to miss.

What it is might even be as inspiring as where it’s set.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: ARTS FAIR The annual Pend Oreille Arts Council’s Arts and Crafts Fair will be held Saturday from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on Sandpoint’s city beach. Admission is free. From noon to 4 p.m., a free shuttle bus will transport fair-goers between the city parking lot on Third and Oak to the fair site.