MONROE – Lines, lines everywhere, filled with mostly patient people eager to join the fun at the Evergreen State Fair on Saturday.
The lines began with cars heading into Monroe, strung out so far that some State Patrol troopers had to drive on the shoulder.
Once inside the fairgrounds, lines formed at rides, food booths and exhibits.
The fair was a place to line up, but also to play, shop, explore, people-watch and learn from the artisans, crafters and laborers of Snohomish County and beyond. From people eager to share their knowledge of making homemade brews, to weavers and knitters demonstrating how to spin wool, they made the fair a hands-on, come-try-it-or-watch-it experience.
Dori Grandstrand of Sultan has demonstrated her artistry for several years, moving her potter’s studio to the fair, where visitors can take a turn at her wheel.
“I want to show people how time-consuming handmade pottery is,” she said. “And there aren’t a whole lot of potters, and it’s a way to network with others.
“I’ve been an artist all my life,” she said. “I draw, paint, do beadwork, make big necklaces.”
She drives a Community Transit bus part-time to pay the bills so she can indulge her artistic passions. She took two pottery classes about four years ago at Everett Community College.
“The bug bit me, and I was ready to go,” Grandstrand said. “I bought a wheel, found a kiln, took over a garage. The rest is all self-taught.”
She’s learned to make her own glazes, and likes making one-of-a-kind items. Her display included wind chimes, bowls and plates with hand-carved designs.
Kyle Barned, 11, of Los Angeles, was visiting relatives in Lake Stevens and stopped by Grandstrand’s booth. The seventh-grader had made pinch pots – hand-formed clay bowls – in the fourth grade. He asked why one of Grandstrand’s pieces in progress wasn’t exactly the same all the way around.
“Even great potters mess up,” she said with a smile. “There are days your hands don’t want to do anything.”
With a small crowd watching, she took an uneven piece of clay and smashed it on the ground.
“This is why they call it ‘throwing’ pottery,” she said.
Fairgoers not only got to experience how to do things, but also how not to do them.
Shelby Jurgens of Lake Stevens donned a pair of goggles and tried to walk a straight line for about 5 feet at the Snohomish County DUI Task Force booth. The goggles help simulate an intoxicated person’s reaction.
The goggles “make you feel like a penguin,” she said.
Her mother, Kelly Jurgens, walked a pretty straight line, but it wasn’t on the day-glo orange line painted on the ground. It veered off at a sharp angle.
“I started getting really, really dizzy and a little nauseated,” she said. “You think you see the line, but you don’t.”
State Trooper Judy Lewis and others explained to people stopping by the booth how alcohol affects drivers and their perceptions. Just behind her, a smashed patrol car sat on a trailer, with photographs and details of the accident taped on its doors. Trooper Mark Pederson was severely injured in December 2002 when an intoxicated driver slammed into the parked patrol car, which in turn hit Pederson, who was on the shoulder of the road.
The fair continues through Sept. 6.
Reporter Cathy Logg: 425-339-3437 or logg@heraldnet.com.
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