Recap: Long's Park Art & Craft Festival 2015

Long time, no see! Which is entirely my fault and I appreciate your willingness to read my sporadic updates.

The last time I took a seat in the blogging chair (which in reality is a wooden stool at a work bench in the middle of the shop) was a couple of months ago as we finished up "Buried Treasure" and before our big annual trip to Long's Park Art & Craft Festival in Lancaster, PA. Labor Day weekend the one time a year we break down and load up all of the immensely heavy speculation furniture pieces we have into a horse trailer and set it up under a tent in a beautiful park for the world to see/sit/touch/buy. Care to hear about it? Cool, because I'm going to tell you about it.

The week before the show was spent collecting all of our unsold speculation pieces into the shop for a mock-up of what we wanted to the booth to look like. When you have so many large pieces paired with the aim to make a tent that's cozy and inviting (instead of intimidating), it's good measure to do the rearranging and 'hmm, maybe try that over there' dance while we have the time and space in the shop. Amongst other things, we were taking along the big live edge walnut table sofa, our two live edge walnut desks, and the Morris chairs and so we wanted to create a living room environment you couldn't resist taking a seat in even if it was located in a tent in the middle of a public park. When the furniture placement was decided, everything was dusted and detailed, broken down into it's smaller parts, wrapped up, and packed into the trailer, truck, and cars. The biggest and heaviest pieces were stacked onto a big cart tetris-style and pulled into the trailer with a block and tackle pulley system. Then it was onto days of gathering all the last minute boring stuff- price tags, box of cleaning supplies, tool boxes, business cards, overhead lighting, signs and posters, a lot of zip ties, etc.

Upon a bright and early arrival to Long's Park on Thursday, we rolled the cart out of the trailer and begin the unloading process. Thanks to Tents For Rent, our necessarily enormous tent was set up and ready to go so we just had to unwrap and assemble everything we had brought. It's the finer details that tend to take the longest- hanging lights, unwrapping moving blankets, attaching the price tags, assembling the 'Apprentice's Corner', and doing the final polishing. All in all though, I'd say (with the gracious help of my dear friend Abby and one of our stellar alumni Jimmy) we did a good job setting up a rockin' tent. Before we pull down the sides of the tent and tuck the furniture in for the night before show day #1, we all crack a beer and cheers to the hope of good weather, big crowds, fun times, and lots of sales!

The weekend was not only fun, but also a success for the Lohr Woodworking Studio. "Buried Treasure", the live edge walnut coffee table with a twenty year old walnut captured in the crotch of the slab, was sold before we even wrapped it up to bring it to the park. One of our alumni called up and bought it as a wedding present for his son before the public got the chance. Thanks, Dan! Beyond that, we said goodbye while the Bowmans said hello to Jeff's brown oak burl cocktail table which was made from what small bits remain of the infamous all-burl oak log that came to us from the UK to make "Resurrection" and "Frontier". Rob's ghost/ambrosia maple coffee table found it's forever home with a favorite loyal Lohr School of Woodworking alumni, Rob & his wife Deb (although I think it's safe to say the decision to snag the table was all hers). I even managed to sell a few smaller pieces from my Apprentice's Corner!

When the weekend wrapped, we were most excited at the lack of rain that was coming down. Last year we found ourselves in the midst of a monsoon as we tried desperately to protect and pack all the wood furniture. An event like that will make you appreciate a sunny Sunday more than you can imagine. Anyway, it's amazing how much more quickly packing up must be than unpacking. The show closes it's doors at 5pm on Sunday and it's always a personal goal to hit the road before it's completely dark. We count ourselves damn lucky to have the kind of amazing and kindhearted students we do because Jimmy & John traveled more than a few miles with smiles to help us and Eoin pack everything up in record time. Thanks fellas, you are truly the best!

There are few things better than a weekend spent among fellow artists, craftsmen, admirers, and shoppers in an open air, late summer park setting. It's always such a treat to get to talk with so many new and different people from all over the country. I am especially grateful to have the chance to step into such a creative and motivated world at such a young age and being so new to the game. I am beyond lucky to have fallen into the arms of Lohr Woodworking and it's weekends like this I'm proudest to show the world what these gents have taught me and what wonderful things we do together.

A HUGE thank you to the organizers of the Long's Park Art & Craft Festival, the festival goers, the fellow artists, and especially the people who fell in love with our work enough to take it home with them. Cheers to the end of a beautiful summer and the start of a cool autumn. Keep your eyes open for upcoming posts on several projects we have starting up for this winter!

[Inside Scoop: There's a desk, a veneer cabinet, a Woodcraft Magazine article, and maybe even the start of a new show room in the works for winter- and that's just the beginning!]

Long's Park Success Stories

Fun was had by all at Long's Park this year... until a monsoon rolled in... but, I'll get to that part later.

As makers of large and heavy things, we had to arrive bright and early on Thursday morning to ensure we could get everything assembled and ready for Friday's show open. First things first, remove the giant cart of furniture from the horse trailer. Again, with the aid of a block-and-tackle and some ramps, we wheeled that sucker out with relative ease. Lucky for us, the weather was perfection for move-in day. We set up over 30 pieces of our furniture in our booth, enjoyed a nice packed lunch on one of our new desks, detailed the pieces, lit everything, and were on our way before the sun set. Yes, that includes the moving and set up of the 11'6" long live edge brown oak table and our just-finished live edge walnut desks.

The park opened it's metaphorical doors at 10am on Friday and the Lohr Woodworking Studio team was ready for visitors! I was particularly excited (and nervous) because it was my first-ever show. What I learned? People are so nice! Seriously, if you want to talk to really pleasant, interested, and happy people, go to the Long's Park Art & Craft Festival because that seems to be where they all are- both visitors and exhibitors. With a steady flow of foot traffic through the show and our tent all weekend, I got the chance to meet and talk with so many wonderful people. Everyone wanted to know about the materials, the designs, and process that goes into making our pieces and we were all more than happy to tell them all about it. It was fantastic!

What makes any show even more fantastic is finding those people in the world that love something you've made so much that they want to take it home to keep as their own. I was the first to make a sale and, beyond being completely surprised, I was flattered and appreciative that Sandy couldn't imagine her new mantle without my live edge maple candle holder atop it! So, Friday marked a landmark moment in my woodworking career- confirmation that people like the things I can make enough to buy them; I'm still smiling, two weeks later! Jackie came to Long's Park to find Rob specifically after seeing his article in Woodcraft Magazine. She and her husband are now the proud owners of a mini Lohr Woodworking Studio collection of their own including two Morris chairs, an accessory table, and one of my cherry hand mirrors. Elaine couldn't leave the show without one of Jeff's last remaining floor lamps (likely never to be made again). Above and beyond all that, we were proud to sell out of our easy-storing red oak deck chairs! What a show, what a show!

One of the major highlights of this year's Long's Park Art & Craft Festival was getting to meet Marion Faulkner. Marion's husband, Dick Faulkner, founded the Long's Park show in 1979 and their son Rick went on to serve as co-director with his father. He built the show from the group up and it now continuously reigns as one of the top fine art & craft shows in America. Despite the difficult terrain, she came into our booth and posed for a photo with Jeff. It's thanks to the Faulkner family that artists from across the nation are able to share their art every Labor Day weekend at Long's Park so we considered it an honor to have the chance to meet her!

After a long and enjoyable three days of perusing all kinds of art, talking with all sorts of people and artists, and showing and selling our furniture, it was time to pack it in and head back to Schwenksville. Out came the cart and the horse trailer, and in came roughly 50 packing blankets. With the threat of 'severe thunderstorms' lingering all day, Jeff & Linda brought in reinforcements to make the move-out happen as quickly as possible. With Jeff, Linda, Rob, myself, John, Paula, and Steve, 5 vehicles, and some celebratory beers, we got everything done in record time. It was all smooth sailing, the cart was in the trailer, we were breaking out the sheets of plastic to protect what we could inside of it from the threat of rain... and then the sky opened up. Smooth sailing quickly turned into a scramble to get anything left out into the trailer, drape some sort of plastic over the heap of furniture, and get the door closed before everything was soaked. Everything still got pretty wet but, thankfully, I think we got more soaked than the furniture. It was really the above-and-beyond efforts of Jeff and Linda pulling everything out into the shop to air dry the following day that ultimately saved the finish.

Thank you to those of you that came to the festival and enjoyed the final weekend of Summer 2014 with artists from all over the nation. A huge thank you to those of you that stopped by our booth to say hello, chat, sit, touch, and/or shop with us! Thank you to the amazing people that helped us move in and move out of the show. For those of you that missed the festival, I can't recommend it highly enough as something to add to your 'Summer 2015 To Do List'.

Now, we welcome the fall season and all the excitement, classes, and furniture-making it will bring!