Festival of Lights Art and Craft Fair

December 2

Greenbelt’s annual Festival of Lights Juried Art and Craft Fair takes place on the first weekend in December in the Greenbelt Community Center. The fair features dozens of local artists specializing in a variety of crafts, from painting to photography, fabric art, pottery, jewelry…

Banner for this year’s Art and Craft Fair in front of the Greenbelt Community Center

The fair has three categories of exhibitors: professional vendors, youth and non-profit exhibitors, and humanity organizations. The professional vendors are housed in the Community Center gym.

The Greenbelt Pottery Group’s stand. This is an informal group of potters who use the pottery studios on the Community Center’s third floor. Eight artists from the group are participating in the fair.

Jing-Jy Chen specializes in Chinese brush painting.

Wendy Hurlock Baker (right) makes jewelry from upcycled materials. Behind her stand, on the stage is an otter named Ophelia which was made by children from the summer Creative Kids Camp. Kids used to make these creatures and float them on Greenbelt Lake on Independence Day.

A fair goer looks at one of Baker’s necklaces.

Karen Arrington at the Level 5 Pottery stand. Level 5 Pottery is the highest level pottery class offered by the Greenbelt Recreation Department. Arrington is also a Greenbelt Artist in Residence, with a studio on the third floor of the Community Center.

Mea Rhee, left, Level 5 Pottery class’s instructor, shows a piece to a visitor. The class meets every Friday night at the pottery studio.

Celestine Ranney-Howes, left, a Greenbelt resident artist, and Hilary Howes are in front of her stand of art quilts and fabric accessories.

Behind the table on the left, Nora Simon, a Greenbelt resident artist and designer, has art prints, cards and wrapping paper. On the right, Ingrid Hass shows her fine art prints.

Vicky Kent shows a girl a flyer toy.

Katie (age 2), being held by her mother, plays on a drum in the hands of artist Toby Rivkin. Rivkin has handmade drums, mugs, hula hoops, and toys for sale.

Cheryl Paret is making a rug on a loom from cotton strips.

The fair’s café is hosted by the Greenbelt Arts Center. Here working at the counter are from left Pat Novinski, Dottie Spivacke, and City Councilmember Konrad Herling.

Lunch, snacks, and drinks are available at the café.

In a separate room, a free craft workshop is taking place.

Workshop participants are making gift boxes.

Newspaper, magazines, and maps can be used to decorate gift boxes.

On the left, working at her gift box is 2012 Junior Miss Greenbelt Caroline Casey.

Casey shows her finished gift box.

Little Miss Greenbelt Ashley Wickline cleans up.

Beth Fendlay, right, art studio manager, helps workshop participants make paper bows. There are several styles.

Room 114 houses the fair’s Humanities Mart. Here Greenbelt 75th Anniversary co-chairs Dave Mills and Carol Malveaux sit behind a table with a variety of 75th anniversary products, including books, mugs, pins, posters, pens, tiles, and T-shirts.

Behind the Greenbelt Museum’s tables are from left Sheila Maffay-Tuthill (education/volunteer coordinator), Bob Garber (docent), Pamela Gregory (docent), and Megan Searing Young (curator).

Roger McIntire, left, is a child and family counseling expert and his wife Eileen Haavik McIntire writes mysteries and historical novels. They operate an online bookstore ParentSuccess.com, and here they have their books and books from their store for sale.

Laura Brown is at the Greenbelt Writers Group’s table. She has a number of anthologies written by members of the group. The Greenbelt Writers Group meets every third Friday night in the Community Center.

At Maryland Writers Association’s table are Alix Moore, left, a New Age writer, and Jonathan Allen, a novelist who specializes in dark fantasy and horror. Moore is also the president of the Montgomery County Chapter of the Maryland Writers Association, and she tells me that the group meets once a month at Montgomery College’s Rockville campus. Both authors have their books for sale: “Tapping the Well Within” by Moore and “Among the Dead” series and others by Allen.

Ben Foster of Alight Dance Theater looks at the schedule for the company’s next show “Stargazing.” The company will host an open studio on December 8 and a “sneak peek” season preview in February at Greenbelt Arts Center. “Stargazing” will premiere at Dance Place in D.C. in June.

Back in the gym, at the pottery group’s stand, Lola Skolnik shows me some raku pieces she did at this fall’s raku workshop led by Karen Arrington.

A few more of Lola Skolnik’s raku pieces

Russ Little, a Greenbelt resident artist, stands in front of his stand of wearable fiber art.

From left Loraine DiPietro, Mary Gawlik, and Gina Mai Denn are Greenbelt resident artists and they share studio 302 on the third floor of the Community Center.

In Room 103 are tables for young artists and non-profit organizations. Here Brianna Satinoff stands at her table of dolls, hats, and scarves to benefit UPARC, “an organization that helps the developmentally challenged.”

Nipa Shah and John McElhenny are behind the Greenbelt Nursery School table. They have for sale “Greenbelt is Great” T-shirts and raffle tickets for the quilt on the stand.

Gigi Gaskins and her grandmother Mary Ann Gaskins have hand-made crochet hats and scarves for sale to benefit Freedom Youth Academy.

Community Center Coordinator Rebekah Sutfin points at a painted door on display in the gym and tells me that it comes from an Artful Afternoon program.

On Sunday, the fair closes at 4 p.m. and here vendors start to pack up.

The Greenbelt Pottery Group members pack up their wares.

Pottery group members are from left, in the front row, Judy Goldberg-Strassler and Cathy Groen, and in the back row, Karen Wilkening, Willie Caster, Lola Skolnik, Stephanie Massey, Judith Kornett, and Christina Guidorizzi.