Brandywine Festival of the Arts

Has anyone here heard of the Brandywine Festival of the Arts? It is an annual arts festival in Wilmington, Delaware. Featuring hundreds of artists exhibiting hand-made art, the festival has been a Delaware tradition for over 51 years. People from all over the country travel to our small state the weekend after labor day to walk Brandywine Park's Josephine Gardens. There is arts of all sorts, live performances, children's activities, and many different kinds of food. The whole place is filled with the smells of various candles and soaps, flowers, evergreens, cinnamon, funnelcakes, and pizza. The air is filled with the sounds of children laughing, people talking, and people calling out "Water, one dollar!" Everybody is smiling, laughing, and complimenting peoples work.

Ray Berger is one of the artists. He takes metals like copper, brass, and stainless steel and makes them into tree decorations, end tables, and many other cool things. He says "My designs are either abstract, traditional, or contemporary, and reflect subjects that lend themselves to both home and garden decor. The materials that I use are state of the art: pre-finished copper, pre-finished brass, stainless steel and chrome steel, as well as traditional metals such as copper, brass & iron. Normal maintenance requires nothing more than a once over-with a feather duster." His website, http://www.rayberger.com, has his biography, some of his works, and more statements from him.

Another artist named Dona Jones works with copper, making it into pins, earings, necklaces, and window ornaments. She calls it 'Kindred Spirit Designs'. "I am primarily working in what I call torched copper, through repeated heating and cooling with an acetylene torch, I am able to produce a rainbow of color on the surface of the copper." she told me. She let me watch her heat the copper twice, and then let me have the piece.

Katherine Cheetham makes glass decorations. She has multicolored glass shapes and designs. One of her designs is an icicle. She takes thre tubes of glass with colored streaks, and she twirls the glass around and around, until it tapers off in a point. You can hang these on wires, or you can just keep it for good luck. There is a wide variety of colors. You can buy this piece for $2.75. Her website is http://www.katherinecheethamglass.com

There are many other pieces there, including paintings, stepping stones, clothes, belts, bags, dog treats, and more! Everything is hand made, and everything is amazing. Mary Gentner, from our own school, says "Everything is so cool." Alissa Leung, another one of our students that went, says "It's a warm environment. There's so many people creating work and respecting other people's work." This place is amazing." It's every year, during the weekend after Labor Day. Katherine, Dona, Ray, and many other people will be expecting to see you. Will you let them down?