By mid-afternoon, freshly dyed shirts danced in wind, dangling from the twine stretched between the budding oaks of Hege-Cox’s lawn, beckoning passersby to peruse the second annual Art Fair, held on April 4. The fair included a variety of booths, including face painting, tie dying, silk screening, fork sculpturing, Hula Hoop making, a DURTY interactive art swap wall, book binding, a ceramics wheel, pin-hole camera making, and paper making. The four bands – Two Planes, Not Dead Yet, Surgery Vision and Luna Glazer – played throughout the day under the blue spring firmament.
“The Art Fair is more fun than Serendipity,” said sophomore Molly Spadone. “It’s great to spend the day being creative, working with your hands.”
Junior art major Gillian Galdy organized the fair this year for the second time. She received $1,300 from Senate and food donations from the cooking club. Volunteer students ran the booths, and all the bands offered to play free, but Galdy wanted and was able to contribute to them.
“This event is a little bit of love, creativity and music, thrown up together on the lawn,” Galdy said.
Although she will not organize it next year due to her senior thesis requirements, she hopes that other students take the torch, so the Art Fair will become a tradition, similar to the Draw-A-Thon. She explained how seeing alumna Kay Kelley’s success with the Draw-A-Thon inspired her to start her own event.
“What is especially great about the Art Fair is the variety of creative activities that students can participate in,” Galdy said. She also highlighted how the live music helps attract non-art students to come check out the fair.
Students expressed how the Art Fair allowed them to experience new crafts.
“I am not an art major, but I am excited to learn new skills, especially silk screening,” said first-year Courtney Mandeville.
“This event is great because you can’t always do crafty things by yourself,” said senior Julia Kartman, who organized the paper-making station. “People come together as a community to share their knowledge.”
Kartman described how many materials you can put into the paper, such as grass seeds, flowers, scrap paper, laundry room lint, and any other material that can enhance its aesthetic value. Students at the paper station plucked clusters of soft pink flowers from nearby trees to put into the paper pulp.
Other booths also exemplified a use of recycled and re-used materials. Senior Suzannah Goodman, who organized the papermaking booth, emphasized how they found all recycled materials, many of which, such as the wallpaper, came from the Durham craft exchange. Also, the pin-hole camera booth used recycled soy milk containers.
This year, Galdy made a point to attract people from outside the Guilford community. The DURTY artist co-operative drove all the way from Durham. Their nascent non-profit organization intends to build a local art community by sponsoring events for everyone, and displaying youth artwork. Their art-swap wall reflected their mission.
“I don’t think people realize they can take the art,” said Patrick Phelps-McKeown, a DURTY volunteer and high school friend of Galdy’s. “The idea is to take something and create a new, cooler piece, and put it back on the wall.”
“I think we should plan to do events like this back in Durham,” Phelps-McKoewn said. “It’s a gestalt experience. I’ve just enjoyed listening to music and seeing everyone interacting and engaging with the different stations.”
Other attendees pointed out the importance of having artistic community events. “The Art Fair is a vehicle for putting out good energy into the surrounding community,” said Galdy’s father, Elliot Galdy, the percussion player for Not Dead Yet. “Creativity is a good thing; humans need it. People die if they don’t create.”
By late afternoon, the booths came down, but students left with shirts, paint-covered faces and fork sculptures – mementos of the sun-soaked, convivial spirit of Guilford’s day of creation.
“This is Guilford personified,” Gillian Galdy said. “Students love to be outside and be creative.