An Essex County Arts and Crafts Festival will be held Wednesday and Thursday, August 30-31, at the Essex County Fairgrounds in Westport.

The Festival will present the work of artists and crafters currently working in the county and neighboring region. “It is a celebration of the reality that every town and hamlet throughout the county is home to numerous creative people who enrich their communities by their hand-made creations,” an announcement to the press said.  “People from across the county and neighboring region have signed on to present their work. Attendees to this free event will have the chance to meet the individuals making these arts and crafts.”

Arts and crafts expected include: fine art painters, all who have local reputations and some that exhibit nationally: painters in oil, acrylics, water colors, creators of abstractions and portraits, local scenes, surrealist figures and suggested narratives; photographers of the natural world and landscape; a maker of hand-made primitive hooked rugs; weavers, knitters, and sewers of blankets, quilts, shawls, and clothing; an established potter whose domestic productions draw their decorative imagery from the natural world; a rustic furniture maker; a master builder of guitars; highly accomplished jewelers; basket makers; a candlemaker and a creator of soaps and lotions; creators of note cards bearing personally-worked painted, printed, or photographed images.

Images of representative work by the participating artists and craft people can be accessed on the Festival’s website.

The Arts and Crafts Festival is part of an on-going regional effort to increase the use of the County Fairgrounds in Westport.