Handmade Cutting Board Blues*

J and I manged to escape our house over the weekend and spend a day in State College, at the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts. It has not been easy to escape, as of late. J has been working long hours and too many weekends, a situation that is causing both of us frustration and some anxiety, as attempts to plan some sort of last hurrah as a childless couple getaway-ish type weekend have been thwarted by his work responsibilities.

After an early lunch at the Deli, we spent a happy afternoon wandering the streets of State College and portions of Penn State University's campus, peering into booths filled with prints, painting, pottery, jewelry and woodwork.

Midway through our tour of the tents we stopped to admire the blockcut prints made by an artist named Thomas Bucci. As we were studying the prints, the thunder we had been hearing for the past twenty minutes became louder, the wind kicked up and it began to rain. Thomas invited us to shelter inside his tent during the storm, assuring us that it would be strong, but very brief.

As we stood inside his zipped up tent, he explained how he created the prints. He pulled out his Blackberry and showed us some of the sketches he created on his phone, done with a piece of software and a stylus.

I was amazed. I loved the mingling of art and technology. As the rain stopped, J and I purchased two prints to add to our collection, most likely to decorate the walls of the alien's room.

We saw the artisan who made the jewelry box J purchased at the Three Rivers Festival as a birthday gift for me two years ago. J was thrilled to find him, as we owed him money. When we originally purchased the box, we asked if he could change out one of the sections. Since it could not be done at the festival, we put a 50% down payment and he agreed to make the change and call us before sending the box so we could pay him the rest.

Except that he never called. He packed the box up and shipped to us, without asking for the rest of the money. By the time we received the box we had lost his business card and had no way of contacting him to pay up.

It took a while for J to convince him that we still owed him money and J was only able to pay him back half of what we actually owed. But it was something.

I also experienced something like homesickness while talking to a weaver from Greensboro, N.C, my home during graduate school. She was sunny and bouncy and fun and caught me up on some of my favorite places in the city. I walked away with a matching mohair hat, scarf and shaw, which I plan to use while cuddling the alien next winter. She walked away delighted at the thought that the shawl would be used to keep warm a new life.

* Title inspired by the antics of a customer at one booth who wanted to make sure that she was shipped a cutting board without any knots in it. She did not like any of the boards he had available because they were "knotty".