Kids get crafty at the fest

Chris Rosenblum

- crosenbl@centredaily.com

STATE COLLEGE — Someone had to demonstrate the wares, and Jessie Jenkins hopped to it.

CDT/Christopher Weddle

Alexandra Treml, 11, waits for the start of the Children & Youth Day Grand Procession at the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts on Wednesday, July 8, 2009. CDT/Christopher Weddle

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Up and down she went on one foot, swirling a plastic soda bottle of dried corn attached to her ankle by rope encased in clear tubing. She and her friend, Meghan Shiels, both 12 and from Julian, made the contraptions for the annual Children and Youth Sidewalk Sale on Wednesday, the start of the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts.

Jessie’s stint advertising the “Twist and Skips” lasted a few minutes before she sat back down.

“Not too bad, but it’s tiring,” she said. Though few of the artists among the 186 booths on Allen Street hawked their art as vigorously, everyone’s creativity shone as brightly as the sun peeking out from behind rolling clouds.

Delali Agawu, 13, of Pine Grove Mills, didn’t need to do anything to attract people. Her shoulder bags, a riot of vivid patterns, caught eyes naturally.

She started out years ago gluing felt together, but now stitches cotton and brocade fabrics cut freehand as seamstresses do in her father’s native Ghana.

“I personally like choosing the colors and thinking what I’m going to do with them,” she said. “Sometimes, I can’t bring myself to do anything (with the fabrics) because they’re so beautiful.”

James and Joe Woodward, 18 and 15, respectively, work with less elegant raw material — the remains of junked cars.

The brothers from near Port Matilda brought sculptures fashioned from parts and scrap metal. Taught by their mother, Elli Groninger, a metal artist, they welded together angular flowers, figures and creatures — including a 4-foot wasp — that drew plenty of compliments and sales.

From James Woodward’s hands came hands. He carved out metal mitts, using traces of his own, then painted them with lively daubs and whorls inspired by skin.

“I look at the patterns inside hands and go from there,” he said.

Recycling also appealed to the Henry sisters, of Madison, N.J., who took time from visiting family in State College to show off their notable clipboards and pencil cups.

Dana, 12, Maura, 10, and Meghan, 8, fastened collages of magazine photos in various themes — dogs, cats, music, fashion, cookies — and coated them in clear glue. So begat “Cool Crafts.”

“We just thought it was cool to make something different and to take something useful and make it pretty,” Dana said.

Blending ordinary objects and her imagination, Maggie Jaenicke, 10, of Park Forest, created a fleet of whimsical cars.

To toy blocks she attached wooden wheels linked by skewers running through straws. Leftover Easter egg halves — whitened, adorned with cartoon faces and topped with feathers and yarn — became the drivers, leading to the name “Maggie’s Eggshellent Toyolkas.”

One motorist, dubbed “Bedhead,” sported a crown of pink tubes.

“I liked designing the hair,” Maggie said.

Martha Daley, 15, of State College, enjoyed making little dolls with pipe cleaner limbs, detailed outfits and wooden heads, hands and feet. Among her figures stood Marie Antoinette and, complete with guitar, John Lennon.

Even more fun was the chance to show off her creations.

“I just like to hear people’s feedback about them,” she said.

Earning money felt good to Meghan Shiels and Jessie Jenkins, the skipping girls who knew from past festivals how lucrative the day could be.

“We usually put it in our bank account, because we like to save up for something special,” Meghan said, prompting her partner to chime in:

“And we buy more supplies for next year.”