GV Arts & Crafts Festival offers unique gifts

A wide array of arts and crafts by some of Green Valley’s most talented artisans will be on display and for sale Friday and Saturday, March 7-8 at The Green Valley Arts & Crafts Festival 2008 at the West Center.

The festival, sponsored by the Green Valley Arts & Crafts Association runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.

It offers unique gift items, all hand-crafted by local arts and crafts people, door prizes and refreshments, including breakfast, lunch fare and snacks from Sweet Pea Catering.

The show is free and open to the public, with more than 120 vendors on hand showcasing their jewelry, ceramics, textiles, woodwork, lapidary, clay work, pottery, metal work, woven and knitted items, sculpture and more.

All those showing their works are Green Valley Recreation members.

Many of them have taken classes in their respective specialties and use GVR equipment available in studios, woodworking and lapidary room in the various GVR centers.

Among those who work at home with their own equipment is Donna Thiel, who has been displaying her unique bead creations in every Arts & Crafts Association show since 1989.

Thiel started dabbling in arts and crafts in the 1970s, working in leather and making predominately Western-style accessories and matching earrings.

Through the years, Thiel says, her style has changed with the times, and she is currently working with beads.

“It’s costly to buy really good products to make my earrings, bracelets and necklaces, but it’s worth it in the end,” Thiel says. “The results are spectacular and they just fly off my table people like them so much.”

Most of her beads are purchased each year at the gem show.

“I look for color, texture and the ‘feel’ of the bead,” she says. “I also look at bead proportion. You don’t want to put a small women in giant over-sized beads. The bold, chunky beads are for those who can pull that look off. I create more delicate bead work for smaller women, too.”

A sell-confessed “color freak,” Thiel admits that the placement of certain color in her creations just “captures the eye.”

She’s a fan of turquoise, and in her words, describes it as “one of the kindest colors to the skin.”

She also likes the brightness of silver and has in her collection a silver-toned bead that won’t tarnish.

The bead artist also prides herself in “one-of-a-kind” designs.

“The most I will make of one style of necklace, for example, is maybe five, and that’s if the design is really special,” she says. “I don’t want my customers wearing the same necklace as the woman next to her is wearing.”

Thiel’s stand is outside the West Center in the courtyard, a place she has always requested because she “loves the sunshine and outdoors.”

“Hopefully the weather will be kind to us to display outside, but that’s the chance I take each year,” she says. “There’s nothing prettier than seeing my beads in the sunlight though. They sparkle and come alive.”

Margaret Terrell is another artisan who is a veteran of many arts and crafts festivals.

Terrell moved to Green Valley from New York in 1990 after spending several years there in business creating custom couture and specializing in ultrasuede fashions.

After relocating to Southern Arizona, she became interested in Southwestern Indian designs, particularly, she says, those found in petroglyphs.

She specializes in jackets, sweatshirts and handbags.

“All my work is from my own designs,” she says.

Her custom-made clothing has been for sale in area shops in Rio Rico, Tubac and in Tucson, where items have sold at the Tucson Museum of Art gift store as well as the Arizona Inn gift shop.

Craftsperson Elaine Stokes is not only participating in the arts and crafts festival, she also is chairperson of the event for the fourth year in a row.

Stokes will be displaying her Southwestern leather ornamental accessories and well as her “glitter critters,” sparkly lizards and frogs made into fun pins.

Stokes has lived in Green Valley since 1988, but spends her summers in Colorado, where she was very involved working in fine art.

A veteran of the Arts & Crafts Association show since 1989, Stokes has made glitter critters for the past eight years and says “they are always a hit.”

She also works with suede and polymer clay for her other pieces which when worn on a jacket or blouse, transform it into a garment that is extra special.

While the arts festival allows local artisans the opportunity to make some extra money, the association usually gives a major donation, ranging from $5,000 to $6,000 a year to GVR out of the festival proceeds and those from other shows.

In the past, the association has donated a defibrillator to GVR, a piano and new stage curtain for Desert Hills Center, and funds to the Santa Rita Art League for new equipment at their art room at Santa Rita Springs.

The group is now looking to help fund a new lighted marquee at the West Center.

rford@gvnews.com | 547-9740