Handmade items, art and more available at Summer Arts Festival

“Had you told me that I’d become a woodworker (when I was) in high school, I wouldn’t have believed you. This has been such an amazing experience. I couldn’t see my life unfolding any other way at this point,” Fike said. “I’ll be taking this display to New York next month, actually showing in Queens.”

She didn’t plan to be a full time artist, but she learned about knobcone art in high school. Knobcones are a pine cone that only grow in Southern Oregon and Northern California, according to Fike; they reproduce with fire and are the most physically dense pine cones in the world.

“What I do is, I take the pine cone and I cut it before it’s burned to display the pattern formed by these, before they separate. They culminate into these Fibonacci patterns,” Fike said.

She adds metal or gem inlays in the resin, recently adding color-changing gems to the lineup. She has also added opals inlaid in eucalyptus pods and black walnut to her collection and is planning to add those to her website soon.

She said in the summer she spends time at shows nearly every weekend. The winters are mostly for building inventory. She likes to travel, and gathers her materials for building inventory while on surfing trips, usually around the West Coast.

A hub of fun is set up around the Umpqua Valley Arts Center at 1624 W Harvard Ave. in Roseburg, with 105 booths of everything from jewelry to paintings to food trucks; Fike’s is one of those many offerings. The 55th annual Summer Arts Festival is underway through Sunday.

“It’s going fantastic. Everybody got their booths ready on time and we were ready to welcome guests. All of the booths are fantastic. All of these artists have amazing eyes for design, of course as artists and their booths reflect it and yeah, it’s been going off with a bang,” Ashley Cluver, exhibitions coordinator, said.

The art festival was a juried event, which Cluver said means there is a specific selection process for artists to be accepted into the event. The items sold by the vendors must be 100% handmade; nothing imported or resold is allowed.

“We want to uplift artists that really put a lot of hard work into their craft and their art, and we value that as an organization. So we want to feature only work that’s handmade,” Cluver said.

Booths will be open Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

“We’ve been coming here off and on for 35 years, and so we do Christmas shopping ahead of time and other gift ideas. We can get some good gift ideas here, enjoy seeing all the arts and crafts, and there’s actually some really beautiful pieces,” Bill Ruegg said.

The Rueggs, Bill and Elizabeth, said there are a lot of jewelry and woodworking booths at the event this year. They also said they bought something personal this time around: new garden decorations.

“Sometimes you get to see the same artists that come back year after year,” Elizabeth Ruegg said.

There is also a youth zone with various projects to do for children, a food zone with food trucks and lemonade and two music stages with musicians booked throughout all three days of the event.

“I’m really looking forward to the music,” Cluver said. “On the main stage, we have Global Heat back again, they’re headlining tonight on Friday and then over the course of the weekend we have local and regional talents as well, and they’re worth seeing. So it’s really a good thing to come and shop in the morning, have some lunch or maybe midday shop then lunch, and then start watching the music.”