Bob and Kathy Raymond certainly didn’t mind as a light rain fell intermittently over State College and the Penn State campus Thursday afternoon.
In fact, they were dancing as the 51st Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts got fully under way.
The two Penn State alumni from Pittsburgh were cutting a rug — or a patch of grass — to the sounds of Second Winds, a group of Centre County musicians who play swing, big band and jazz standards. The Raymonds make the trip to to Arts Festival as often as they can, and the variety and number of musical acts is a big part of the reason why.
‘Five or six stages going on all the time with every imaginable kind of music, it’s just amazing,’ Kathy said. ‘You can just walk from place to place and always hear music you love.’
Dozens of acts perform on outdoor and indoor stages downtown and on campus from Thursday through Sunday.
Bob and Kathy Raymond dance on Old Main Lawn. Photo by Geoff Rushton/StateCollege.com
The Raymonds set up camp at Greenwood Furnace State Park, then come into State College for the festival each day at around 11 a.m.
‘And we stay until about 11 at night,’ Kathy said. ‘It’s just a fun time for us.’
‘Rain or shine.’ Bill added.
On Saturdays they’ll spend a little less time in town as the crowd grows considerably, particularly with an influx of students. But they said they try to enjoy as much of the festival as they can each day. They’ll get to AstroFest on clear nights to enjoy some stargazing and astronomy presentations, and usually buy a few pieces of arts or crafts each year.
And they’re well-accustomed to the fact that sometimes the mid-July festival is going to be accompanied by some rain.
‘I’ve ruined cell phones out here on Allen Street,’ Kathy said with a laugh. ‘That’s the way it goes.’
Artists know that dealing with weather is part and parcel of an outdoor festival and sidewalk sale.
‘It all kind of works out. You’ve got to expect it.’ said Dan Baxter of State College. ‘You’re going to get the wind, or the heat. You might get rain. You get a combination. We all kind of expect it. We knew the rain was coming and it wasn’t bad today. It’s just one of the realities of doing a sidewalk sale.’
This is Baxter’s fifth year at the Arts Festival showcasing and selling his Baxterbots. He makes robots out of vintage items, usually from the 1950s.
He started out making small robots, and his work has grown to larger proportions over the years. But this year he decided to bring back those smaller pieces — what he calls ‘mini-bots’ — and add in some other features as well to enhance the enjoyment for people visiting his booth on Pollock Road near the Carnegie Building.
‘I wanted to get back to this so that everybody can enjoy it,’ he said, adding that the mini-bots are more affordably-priced than some of the larger pieces.
But he knows for a lot people, especially kids, it can just be an entertaining experience.
‘I’ve got some fun graphics on the back [of the tent] that kids can come in and see,’ he said. ‘Little kids come in and they’ll do a robot dance. They’ll come back each year and it’s a fun experience, and they’re not buying. They’ll take pictures. Part of what I’m doing is I’m selling some artwork, and there’s another part where people are just getting to enjoy it.’
Dan Baxter of State College showcases his Baxterbots in his booth at Arts Festival. Photo by Geoff Rushton/StateCollege.com.
Near Baxter’s spot is a tent with a sign in front that says ‘We Are Penn State Ceramics,’ and inside is the work of four recent and current Penn State students. Courtney Michaud and Stephanie Seguin both graduated this spring with Master of Fine Arts degrees; Bradley Klem is a current MFA candidate in ceramics; and Mary Cate Fruehan graduated in the spring with her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.
Penn State’s College of Arts and Architecture worked with Arts Festival to have a student booth for the first time in several years. About a dozen students applied.
The four designed their space more like a gallery than a shop, Seguin explained.
‘It was designed with the idea that we could best showcase the work in a more minimal way, so each piece can get the attention it needs,’ she said. ‘We have storage so that as pieces are going or people want to look at more they can, but instead of just trying to put everything on display at once, making it more of an experience than a retail space would be the thought.’
For each of them, it’s their first time as artists at the festival. They said they of course want to sell some of their pieces throughout the weekend, but they also agreed it’s an opportunity to gain valuable feedback.
‘I graduated this spring, so I have quite a variety of work out, different styles and I’m paying close attention to who’s picking up what and how people are responding to the work, which will influence some of my future making decisions when it comes to selling work,’ Seguin said.
The ceramic work of four Penn State fine arts students on display at Arts Festival. Photo by Geoff Rushton/StateCollege.com
‘It’s nice to be able to see what pieces people are responding to, and this is an environment where that’s easy to do,’ Fruehan said. ‘For me I have some of my sculptural work and some of my pots and this is the first time they’re kind of living together so it’s nice for me to be able to see how they work together.’
It’s also an environment where people aren’t afraid to be honest.
‘It’s an interesting space too because in a gallery, say this was an opening and we asked people to come, they’re generally going to say ‘Looks great. Nice work,’’ Seguin said. ‘I feel like in this setting people are really comfortable saying ‘I want this to be a different color.’ Or ‘I was liking this but I want it with a different handle.’ The feedback feels more honest in a way.’
As Klem noted, there’s always one surefire way to know what people respond positively to.
‘If they like it, they will tell you they like it by buying it,’ he said.
See photos from Thursday at Arts Festival in the gallery below.
