My daughter, son and I decided we simply had to attend the Main Street Arts Fair tonight even though we were a little tired after the long day of doctors visits and rain. Fortunately the weather had cleared up nicely. We arrived and parked, for free, in the garage by Bass Hall right off Sundance Square, and were able to reach Main Street with only two blocks’ walking and an elevator ride.

Main Street is decked out in canvas booths with handmade collectibles and finery.

The arts fair is a fine mixture of genres, styles and mediums. The bulk of what is to be seen is offered in small canvas booths lined along Main Street and its tributaries. You might see, on arriving, hand made jewlery, leatherwork, oil or watercolor paintings, photographey, embellished or not, pottery, woodwork, or glass paperweights.

Pepper grinders by Robert Wilhelm of Raw Design in Portland.

We spent some time looking at the works of Robert Wilhelm, whose Raw Design studio in Portland, Oregon, specializes in hand made pepper grinders. Wilhelm told us he got the idea for making the pepper grinders while doing a restaurant redesign 12 years ago and hasn’t looked back since.

We also got quite a kick out of Geoffry R. Johnson’s booth, where he was playing and selling handmade dulcimers. The dulcimer, Johnson showed us, is far easier to play than the guitar. He gave us a demonstration.

We left after an hour an a half’s brisk walk looking into stalls. We had seen a great deal, and avoided, for pecuniary reasons, the many attractive booths from places like Risky’s Barbecue Pit where smells of roasted and fried foods were causing us to feel like we were starving to death.  We walked back and got into the car.

“I think we forgot to do something.” I told my daughter.

“What?”

“What good is our campaign against Walmart and mass produced commercialism if we don’t even buy some art at the Main Street Arts Fair? I fancy one of those paperweights.” They were gorgeous with suspended webs of spun glass inside, only $30.

She agreed — she thought a pepper grinder would be just the thing –and we’ve made plans to go back tomorrow.