Local artists bring eclectic flavor to annual Harvest Festival

The Las Vegas Harvest Festival Original Art & Craft Show is set to return Sept. 11-13 to Cashman Center, 850 Las Vegas Blvd. North. The touring festival brings artists and craftspeople from across the country, but many of the exhibitors are from right in the valley's backyard, or in some cases, the garage.

"I've got about every kind of normal saw you can think of in my garage," said Jeff Thompson of Jeff's World of Wood. "About three years ago, my wife gave me this big box, and when I opened it, I read that it said, 'Scroll saw,' and I was thinking, 'What the heck's a scroll saw?' That's when I started making these."

Thompson makes decorative pieces, many of them wall plaques or freestanding pieces. All involve intricate and painstakingly precise cuts with a scroll saw.

"You start by putting down your pattern on the wood and then holes are drilled," Thompson said. "You make one itty-bitty cut, then you take the machine apart, lift up the wood, find the next hole, set down the wood, reassemble the machine, reassemble the blower, tighten up the blade, make your cut, and then you do it over and over again until there are no more cuts to be made."

The process can take hours to days, depending on the piece. When the cutting is done, he hand sands the front, back and inside and stains nearly every piece. The dry time can be 18 to 36 hours, and then he fine sands the stained work and gives it another coat or more before assembling the final piece.

"For some reason, the red stains take a lot longer to dry," Thompson said. "I've never figured out why."

This will be the second year Thompson has shown his work at the festival, and he said he learned quite a bit from the first one. He created wall plaques of the seals of each branch of the military and sold the Air Force one on the first day of the show.

"People kept coming by and asking if I had an Air Force one, and I told them I'd just made the one," Thompson said. "They couldn't believe it. This year, I wised up and made a bunch of them."

Ruth and Ernie Lucero have been coming to the festival for eight years and have found it a great place to sell the products from their Bistro Blends booth. The company imports high-end food products such as Italian balsamic vinegar and Spanish olive oil.

"We show our product at nine different harvest festivals, " Ernie said. "Our favorite is this one."

He said people come to get their products at harvest festivals, online and at several farmers markets in the valley even though cheaper products are available at grocery stores.

"We carry a high-end product," he said. "It's not inexpensive, but it is high quality, and our customers know the difference."

Steven Makransky has been bringing his business, Worn (BUT NOT) Forgotten, to the festival for four years and said it has been instrumental in the company's growth.

"I've been doing this for eight years," he said. "For four years, it was a hobby, and now, for four years, it's been my job."

Makransky artfully arranges vintage sports team T-shirts and then photographs them, selling prints of shirts from a wide range of sports and teams. He was working in advertising when he started the company after he was inspired by a chance circumstance.

"I'm from Philadelphia," he said. "I was folding my laundry one night, and I had worn all of my Philadelphia team T-shirts that night. I was stacking them on my bed, and I was about to pick them up and put them in my closet when I looked at them and decided to take a picture."

He spends his time photographing, selling the pictures and gathering vintage shirts online, from thrift stores or anywhere else he can find them. He's always on the lookout for more.

"I've always loved sports, and I was born an artist," Makransky said. "Life is too short not to do what you love."

Paul Baker is bringing his Touch of Glaz glass jewelry and mosaic work to the show for the first time. The pieces are cooked in a kiln at up to 1,700 degrees for eight hours or more. The result is time-consuming, but striking.

"I've shown my work in a lot of places in town, but not here before," Baker said. "I don't have a website to sell my work on because all of the pieces are one-of-a-kind, and it's hard to photograph glasswork."

For Jill and Todd Weber of The Lucky Horse, the money they make from the sale of hand-decorated horseshoes mostly goes to the wearers of the original shoes.

"My wife and I own Shiloh Horse Rescue in Sandy Valley," Todd said. "The business was started by Jill and her previous husband, the actor Tony Curtis."

The horse rescue had given horseshoes as a token to people who donated money to the cause for a long time, but it wasn't until the financial downturn that the couple began painting and decorating them.

"We were offered a booth at the National Finals Rodeo, and that was where we had the decorated horseshoes for the first time," Todd said. "They sold so well that we raised more money than we had from any other way before. Since then, we've done over 40 shows and traveled 25,000 miles and done shows from San Diego to South Dakota."

The Las Vegas Harvest Festival Original Arts & Craft Show is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sept. 11 and 12 and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 13. Tickets are $9 for adults and $7 for seniors 62 or older and children 13 to 17. Children 12 or younger will be admitted free. Visit harvestfestival.com.

— To reach East Valley View reporter F. Andrew Taylor, email ataylor@viewnews.com or call 702-380-4532.