Tag: events

American Falls Days, August 2023

On By Jennifer Mugrage5 Comments

This is an annual sort of Towne Faire event. As far as I can tell, all the little towns in rural Idaho have one. There’s a parade late morning, then booths are set up in the park until about 5 p.m. We have some excellent food trucks that come by, such as Angel’s Tacos and a Navajo Taco stand (Navajo fry bread with ground beef and the fixins!)

Of course, you have to get permission to set up a booth, pay a fee, etc. Luckily, we already had a good-looking booth that we had designed for the Medieval Fantasy Faire earlier in the summer. We added the banner this time, because previously people were confused by the fact that we were selling more than one thing. It was my son’s idea to call our booth Cosmic Tree. He got this from the fact that his paintings are hung up inside the booth, like fruit on a tree, and they are mostly starscapes.

I had also done some paintings of our farm country. Here are some mini ones that I sold. Turns out that farm boys like equipment. They snapped up the paintings that featured such things as grain silos and telephone poles. I like nightscapes (I’ll show you some on the blog later), but most people prefer sunsets.

We’ve been here long enough now that we knew many of the people who passed by our booth. We don’t actually live in American Falls, but we spend enough time there to be considered honorary residents IMO.

The rabbit came along with us to attract attention and to promote my son’s signature Galaxy Rabbit paintings.

We did well, and as for next year, justyouwait …!

Guilty Pleasure: Stoneware

On By Jennifer MugrageLeave a comment

I got this fantastic mug at university. I bought it from a sale the Art Dept students were having. Back then, buying anything at all was a big decision that I had to justify. When my Japanese roommate saw it, she got all excited and said the mug looked Japanese. I probably should have given it to her (sorry, Makiko!), but I didn’t. I am still treasuring it all these years later.

Faithful OOB readers have seen this mug before, in my “I Like Bears” post. I think my husband got it for me during a trip to Yellowstone years ago, then it spent several years in storage, then I re-discovered it, with new appreciation, after our most recent move. I use it now because my book The Strange Land features a Bear of Justice.

This lovely thing was purchased at the Fantasy Faire, from a stonewear booth (advertising slogan: “Get Stoned”). I asked the potter, an older lady, about her process, and she said, “I take some clay. I throw it on the wheel. I make a cup. I glaze it, and then I fire it.”

Do you like stonewear?

Phantasy Phaire Photos

On By Jennifer Mugrage1 Comment

Literally every person who passed by our booth was worthy of a photo essay, so these are just a few highlights.

Here’s the alley behind the booths on Saturday. My son said, “It’s beautiful the way everyone shows up and sets up their own booth, and instantly there is a city where there was none before.” He’s eleven.

There was this “Enchanted Statue” who, when given a tip, would wink at you.

Gandalf the White showed up first thing on Saturday morning.

There were many Scotsmen and a few Scots women.

… one ogre …

… musicians …

… jesters …

… mushrooms …

… elves …

And quite a few pirates. The pirate with her back to the camera would, for $5, “arrest” a victim of your choice and parade them throughout the Faire, calling out “Shame the prisoner!” as they wore a placard stating their crime.

Here she is arresting a lady merchant whose crime was running out of fudge at her booth. The person who put her up to this was my son, who wanted to do everything.

Ensuring that we became friends.

Here’s another friend, from the Pocatello Writers’ Group.

And some more people worth looking at.

One thing I regretfully realized after putting together this post was that I do not have a single picture of a knight or warrior. In fact, there were many of these fellows at the Fantasy Faire. A tall, portly warrior in Viking-style armor bought one of my son’s paintings. Also prominent were the Salt Lake City Crusaders, whose motto is “Real Armor. Real Weapons. Real Athletes.” They had a ring set up in which, twice a day, men in authentic armor battled it out. (I swear that, as I wandered by, I saw one armored guy hitting another armored guy on the helmet with a frying pan.) These warriors would periodically come striding through the Faire, but they always walked so fast that I never got a picture. Plus, I guess, there were so many armored men about that I just took them for granted. But, let the record show that they were there.