BY KAREN BOSSICK
Steven Grigsby used to cut trees for a living. Today he recycles tree cuttings and lumber cast-offs, making inlaid tables and wall hangings with them.
“I try to make pretty things out of leftover products from cabinet shops and millwork,” he said. “I get oak and walnut pieces and add them to antlers that I’ve collected wherever the wind takes me.”
Grigsby, who began this new vocation in the past year, will introduce himself to the public this weekend as one of 140 artists who will be taking part in the 20th annual Ketchum Arts Festival.
The festival will be held Friday through Sunday, July 13-15, at Festival Meadows on Sun Valley Road.
Grigsby, who is self taught, took up a chain saw in his backyard at Fish Creek, which lies between Carey and Craters of the Moon National Monument, in part because of the recent birth of his daughter Amelia.
“I wanted to be able to spend more time with my daughter and this allows me to do it—I don’t have the commute between Fish Creek and Hailey every day,” he said.
Grigsby will be making the commute for the three days of the festival, however, as he sets out his work amidst other artists’ works featuring fine furniture, wooden bowls, jewelry, landscape painting, fairy and bird houses, handmade kitchen cutlery, pillows, zipper pulls and more.
Sharon Rinker will offer dog pillows and other doggie products and Dina Wilson her patriotic artwork made of wine corks. Another will offer Bliss Bells made of scrap metal and discarded wood that was destined for the dump.
Veteran Dave LaMure Jr. will be back, coming to the festival a week after unveiling his new bigger-than-life bronze sculpture of surveyor John Hayes at the new Commons Park in front of Twin Falls City Hall.
In researching “A Vision of Tomorrow,” LaMure Jr. learned that every place Idahoans come in contact with was first surveyed by a surveyor who underwent a rigorous training process. Hayes surveyed the famous Cripple Creek and the 49th parallel between the Canadian border and Glacier Park. He also set the first mark for the city of Twin Falls and, it turned out, he surveyed the acreage LaMure Jr. has lived on for 30 years.
“This made the hair on my neck raise in one of those strange moments only history’s power can conjure,” said LaMure Jr., who based his sculpture on an image of Hayes on the cover of the book, “A Forest of Wormwood” by Niels Sparre Nokkentved.
EJ Harpham, the board chair and executive director of the festival, and her husband Rick Stark spent nearly six hours on Sunday, walking nearly four miles of Festival Meadows with a case of paint, while pulling surveying lines for each row as they laid out the field for all the booths.
“We bent over every 10 feet, 5 feet, 10 feet, 20 feet, 10 feet, five feet...row after row,” Harpham said.
The timing of the festival means that it attracts pilots and others who come to Sun Valley for the Allen & Co. confab each year.
Harpham sold her dishware with hand-painted trout to the president of the Philippines and his wife one year.
“They couldn’t figure out why I had bugs on them. I had to explain to them that we fished with them,” she said.
The festival will be held from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.
There will be live music daily starting at noon and children may try their hand at painting, bubbles, bracelet stringing and other crafts at a Kids’ Activity Tent from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. Sun Valley Brewing Company, Maui Wowi Coffees & Smoothies and others will have food and drink for sale.
Well-mannered dogs are welcome but must be on a leash.