Festival of Fine Craft: The 411.

I was in a terrific mood on Saturday morning as I drove to WheatonArts for their annual Festival of Fine Craft. It was another gift-from-the-weather-deity day – brilliantly blue sky, warm sun and moderate temperatures – and I was grooving along to some tunes from a CD that came with a recent issue of the British music magazine, Uncut.

Aside from just anticipating the day, I was also looking forward to discovering for myself what all the fuss was about at the Wheaton festival. Many friends who KNOW – either as buyers or from an artist’s point of view – told me that the WheatonArts Festival of Fine Craft sets a fairly high bar.

Festival of Fine Craft at Wheaton: Preview and Pumpkins (Oh, my).

This weekend, I am planning to take a brief break from focusing on the Phillies and will be heading to WheatonArts in Millville for the annual Festival of Fine Craft.

The Festival is open – rain or abundant sunshine – on Saturday and Sunday, October 2 and 3, from 10 AM to 5 PM.  And just one admission price gets you in to everything! Visitors can view (and purchase) works by more than 140 artists, as well as enjoy what WheatonArts offers all year ‘round – the exceptional collection in the Museum of American Glass, the rich cultural experience of the Down Jersey Folklife Center, and the first-hand look at the creative process at work in the Glass and Craft Studios.

Civil War Weekend: Time Travel, No DeLorean Required.

It was a sparkling Saturday morning as I traveled to Cape May to check out the Civil War Weekend at Historic Cold Spring Village. The weather was early fall perfection and I was entertained on the drive by selections from the left end of the radio dial including tunes from 60s jazz singer Nancy Wilson and a profile on legendary movie man, Cecil B. DeMille.

As I approached from Route 9, Historic Cold Spring Village is so unassuming that I might easily have driven past without taking notice.  But, once I parked the car and walked onto the grounds, it was impossible to not notice the energy and spirit of the place.

As the brochure says, Historic Cold Spring Village is an “Early American Living History Museum”, a circa-1800s world modeled after the original “thickly settled agricultural neighborhood” that once stood at this site.  Most of the buildings that comprise the 30 acre village are transplants from other Cape May and Cumberland county locations, but all are comparable to the everyday architecture in southern New Jersey during that time.