ARTS AND CRAFTS FAIR
Woodstock-New Paltz Arts and Crafts Fair showcases professional artisans.
NEW PALTZ, N.Y. » The Woodstock-New Paltz Arts and Crafts Fair returns to the Ulster County Fairgrounds for its 36th Memorial Day weekend with a wide range of wares ranging from speciality food to fine art to furniture.
“What you see at (this) show you’re not going to see at the county fair,” CoFounder Scott Rubinstein of Saugerties said. “These are professional artisans who make their living from doing this work.
“There are very few hobbyists at our show,” Rubinstein said.
The exhibitors come from nearby, like Bella’s Home Baked Goods of Highland, and 28A Clay, of West Shokan, and from further afield, like Louisa, Virginia-based Twin Oaks Hammocks.
With each of the exhibitors occupying their own enclosure, their display must be attractive, Rubinstein said.
“When people are walking by, you have just a few seconds to grab their attention,” Rubinstein said.
Each day the fair features a number of demonstrations.
“We have a wood turner; subtle woodworkers; we have a wood carver; a chair maker; a ceramic artist hand-building; we have several painters; we have a Chinese watercolor artist; a jeweler; we have scrap materials,” Rubinstein said.
One of his personal favorites are the lathe-turned pens, pencils and wine stoppers.
Among the chair makers are one that specializes in Adirondack chairs, Rubinstein said.
“We have a loyal following of craftspeople who follow us ever year,” Rubinstein said. “These exhibitors have developed a loyal following.
“People have been with us 30 years, other have been with us for five years.”
But Rubinstein said he wants there to be a good deal of turnover in exhibitors each year to keep things fresh for visitors.
This can lead to difficult choices, especially in jewelry and fiber, where there are always a good number of exhibitors, Rubinstein said.
“It’s difficult to make those choices,” Rubinstein said. “We don’t want to have too many jewelers.
But jewelry sells more than any of the arts and craft items, he added.
Sometimes this even means cutting ties with exhibitors who have been with the fair for several years to accommodate new people, Rubinstein said.
Exhibitors are picked in a juried process that looks at material submitted mostly online by prospective exhibitors by mid January. “Online registration has made our job a little easier,” Rubinstein said. “It’s made the clerical work easier, but it doesn’t make the decisionmaking any easier.”
Sometimes even the jurying becomes a bit contentious, Rubinstein said.
“It’s one of these luxuries as a promoter you have,” Rubinstein said.
In other cases, Rubinstein reaches out to potential exhibitors in countless different ways.
“Sometimes you see an article in the paper, a news story not from the area. They have a particular talent, we make contact and make a deal,” Rubinstein said. “We have a show that has a track record.”
Other times organizers reach out to artists who don’t normally exhibit at these types of events, he added.
Rubinstein said they also seek to inspire a new generation of craftspeople by offering space to high school and college kids. “They can see it as possibly a vocation,” Rubinstein said.
Rubinstein said the story of the fair began when he’d travel all over the Northeast with his wife Marsha to exhibit his woodworking projects and his wife’s ceramic pieces.
But once their daughter was born they didn’t want to travel so much, he added.
“We saw an opportunity,” Rubinstein said.
Rubinstein said they first considered the Comeau property in Woodstock for the fair, hence Woodstock being in the name, but they encountered stiff opposition to the idea.
“The opposition and per-
mitting was in conflict with us making preparations to actually have it,” Rubinstein said. “There was enough opposition, traffic and everything else that we might not want to have it at that location.”
So they turned to New Paltz, and the Ulster County Fairgrounds, and they were welcome with open arms, Rubinstein said.
They’ve stayed put ever since, adding a Labor Day weekend show soon after.
“The county and the fairgrounds people have done amazing things to improve the grounds, bathrooms and camping areas,” Rubinstein said. “When something works you stick with it.
“We don’t have any regrets that we had to move it from Woodstock to New Paltz.”
Even as people move more of their shopping online, Rubinstein said he believes craft fairs will continue long into the future.
“There’s a great void, people staring at their phones all day, ordering what they want,” Rubinstein said.
People want to know the person who is making what they have in their homes or put on their bodies, Rubinstein said.
“Everything is produced by the person right in front of you in the booth,” Rubinstein said. “That connection is something people long for.
“It’s a part of modern life that has vanished.”
But Rubinstein admitted the fair’s audience is graying at an appreciable, but not alarming rate.
“There are more seniors than their are used to be,” Rubinstein said.
This can be partly attributed to a loyal following of people within driving distance who have come since the beginning, Rubinstein said. “Our big challenge is to attract younger bodies who have just come into wealth, have new homes and are trying to furnish their homes,” Rubinstein said. “What sustains its success is new people coming.
“That’s pretty much our greatest challenge.”
Rubinstein said that’s meant dipping their toes into the world of online marketing and advertising.
It does have its benefits, Rubinstein said.
“You get a report card of how many people click through on your ads, the tourism click through,” Rubinstein said. “You’ve got to hit all the bases, it’s a new science of marketing any kind of event.”