Art Festival Heats Up As Weather Cools Bolt Of Lightning From Storm Jolts Opening Day Of Annual Event

Art on the Green got off with a bang, in more ways than one.

The weekend storm brought wind, thunder and a bolt of lightning that sent smoke skyward from a nearby tree late Friday afternoon. But by Saturday things had calmed down, and the cool weather was bringing out crowds glad for a respite from weeks of heat.

“There have been throngs of people through here,” Art on the Green volunteer Janelle Burke said Saturday.

This is the 28th year for the art festival, which continues today from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at North Idaho College.

Except for some soggy fabric art, the 127 exhibitors seemed none the worse for the weather. For many of them, the storm swept in memories of other tantrums of nature, which are an occupational hazard on the festival circuit.

“Wind is definitely the worst,” said Oregon ceramic artist Alan Higinbotham.

“I had a windstorm in Boise once. The booth next to me blew into my booth,” he said.

None of his pottery broke.

“I caught the booth and held on for 10 minutes until a security guard came and helped me.”

Richard and Bonnie Jones of Coeur d’Alene have sold their jewelry and ceramics at Art on the Green for 21 years. His strongest weather memory? “It was 1978,” he said. “The sheriff’s department came and told everyone to leave.

“They had tied that tarp down to a Volkswagen,” he said, nodding to the tent where the juried art was exhibited. “The Volkswagen went up and down (in the wind).”

Jones rattled off a list of bad weather memories ranging from Billings, Mont., to Bodega Bay, Calif.

“Omak was the worst. A hailstorm in ‘84 or so.” The farmers were upset, he said, because their crops were ruined.

Inexperienced exhibitors often learn the hard way to anchor their booths, said fabric painter Shelly Werner of Moscow.

“The wind gets under these canopies like a sail,” she said.

Frances Sandberg of Careywood didn’t even have a canopy when she first started selling her tie-dyed clothing, said her husband, Tom Sandberg. She soon got one. After fighting the wind, she got sides for the booth.

Tom Sandberg recalled the collapse of a potter’s entire booth at a Central Valley High School festival.

“It was a sickening sound,” he said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo