It’s not every day you see most of the population of Corvallis in Central Park walking under the gentle rain of early autumn, vibrant and excited, looking at stand after stand of arts and crafts.
Except for the annual Fall Festival!
On Saturday, the Corvallis Fall Festival started at 10 a.m. across the street from the Corvallis Public Library. Celebrating its 50th year, over 100 booths were set up in the park. Artists, local and from across the West Coast, displaying their crafts and bonding with the Corvallis community.
This year, the festival coincided with move-in weekend, which meant Oregon State University students were back in town with parents and families and they all had the chance to enjoy the art, the music and the food.
For some locals, the Fall Festival is almost like a tradition.
“They have a lot of the same vendors every year that we just love to see,” said Casey Collett, co-owner of Oregon Coffee and Tea, located in downtown Corvallis. Collett and her family walk from their store to the park every year to enjoy the festival. “We buy Christmas presents for one another.”
Despite the rain, people were still walking around the park, having fun and making new connections with other visitors and vendors.
The festival displayed a range of different art mediums including quilting, various forms of ceramics, different styles of handmade jewelry, specialty pastries like baklava, graphic t-shirts and art, ceramic lamps and so much more.
One of these booths belonged to Hilda Kidd-Barber, from Fishbowl Pottery.
Kidd-Barber specializes in functional and nonfunctional ceramic art. Working from Monmouth, she makes ceramic lamps, plates and bowls and so much more which she sells across Oregon and California. This year, Kidd-Barber displayed a range of ceramic art with spring themes, lots of bowls with small strawberries and flowers on them which caught a lot of attention at the festival.
A few booths over, Chris Adams, owner of Spore Lust, was showcasing his mushroom-filled art.
Adams, who studied architecture due to his love for drawing, started a graphic art business that could highlight his love for mushrooms, spores and foraging.
“At some point, when I decided I wanted to turn (graphic arts) into more of a business, I felt like I needed to pick a single topic, a single direction,” Adams said. “ In the same year, became kind of obsessed with foraging and mycological taxonomy and so I chose mushrooms.”
Adam and Kidd-Barber were just two out of over one hundred vendors who came down to Central Park over the weekend to connect with people and to showcase their artistic talents.
