Fine Craft Festival Has Something For Everyone

By HEATHER MCLAUGHLIN
mclaughlin.heather@dailygleaner.com

Published Monday September 3rd, 2007

Appeared on page A5

The Daily Gleaner/David Smith ph

Creative minds: Brian Dykeman of Woodland Creations arranges his display of carvings at the New Brunswick Fine Crafts Festival held on the weekend

Former Frederictonian Stephanie Phillips-Powell has a message for the hometown crowd.

Don't take New Brunswick's arts and crafts people for granted.

"I live in Ontario and you don't find crafts of this quality in Ontario," Phillips-Powell said as she strolled the grounds of the New Brunswick Fine Craft Festival this past weekend.

And, she said, she's always asked by fashion-conscious Torontonians about where she gets her jewelry and pottery.

"I tell people about coming here and this is where you can find a lot of excellent craftsmen," she said.

Her niece, Bailee Stoeckle of Toronto, was equally captured by the quality of work at the Officers Square event hosted by the New Brunswick Crafts Council.

"Everything is just so unique here. You can't find that kind of stuff in Toronto," said the young teen who sported a bracelet created for her on the spot at the event.

Frederictonian Karen Annett isn't surprised.

She's been attending the craft festival since the late 1970s when it was a government-sponsored event held at Mactaquac and has watched the growth of the province's artisans.

"I'm a huge craftsperson supporter," Annett said.

Festival co-ordinator Stephanie Peters said all of the craftspeople at the weekend event are juried, so their work meets a critical standard

of workmanship.

This year, 47 vendors set up tents in the downtown park to market everything from woven scarves to jewelry to blown glass to wood carvings. That's up about four or five vendors from last year.

Brian Dykeman, who is trying to establish a niche for himself in wildlife art, came back for the second year to participate in the craft festival.

He won't reap huge sales from the event. His creations sell for between $170 and $2,600.

But he sees the value in participating in the craft festival to bolster

public exposure of his name and work.

Although he's only been carving for seven years, Dykeman's intricate design of a ruffed grouse has already earned him recognition from his wood-carving peers.

It took 300 hours to carve and create the intricate paint pattern for the feathers of the grouse, which is

in a ritual springtime drumming stance.

One of his pieces, which he dubs Stand-off, captures a blue jay and cheeky chipmunk in an eye-to-eye stare that frequently occurs in nature.

"Obviously, the two of them do battle quite often, vocally and fighting over food," he said. "You really try to do something that brings the carving alive in how it's presented."

Dykeman belongs to a local wood carving group where members support each other in nurturing the art form.

He wants his waterfowl designs to be done just right.

"I do a lot of reference material and research to put together a piece. The actual pattern takes quite a bit of time," he said.