As of late Friday night, I was still considering making a last-minute dash up to New York to go to the Renegade Craft Fair. I read so many blogs by people who were heading up there that I knew it would be a fantastic event! But in the end I was dissuaded by traffic and cost and the exhausting amount of time it takes to get up there. I'll have to live vicariously through craftlog and My Paper Crane and the renegade+craft+fair flickr steam.
So I went to the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival instead! I had a great time wandering around all the tents and smelling all the wonderful varieties of food being cooked.
This Omani man was in a tent devoted to metalsmithing. In addition to the copper that he is working on, there were men working in silver and what looked like iron weaponry.
Master-carver Nathan Jackson at work carving a totem pole. I stood and watched him carve for several minutes, and he answered all sorts of questions. One I wish I had asked him - how he selects the wood he is going to carve from.
Seeing so many artisans and craftspeople is always inspiring to me. I was disappointed to see that the number of people actually demonstrating their craft was much lower than in past years. My favorite year of the festival remains 2002's Silk Road Project, but I'm still glad I took the time to explore this one.
See the whole 2005 set here. Or take a look at my photos from the Silk Road.