By Mary O’KEEFE

The 34th Annual Montrose Arts and Crafts Festival filled the shopping park last weekend with booths of food, handmade crafts and clothing. This year, as most years, the temperatures were high but not too bad so spending a few minutes in the shade gave visitors enough energy to keep on shopping.

There were over 250 vendors along Honolulu Avenue, 30 of them new, according to organizer Dee Ovenden. These included those selling food and crafts, and musicians.

Over the years the Arts and Craft Festival has garnered a positive reputation drawing people from as far away as Arizona to Montrose to sell their items. There was plenty for the entire family to do including bounce houses and pony rides for kids and a variety of musicians who lined the 2200, 2300 and 2400 blocks of Honolulu Avenue.

 “The weather cooperated, although upper 80s feels hotter when you are strolling on asphalt,” said Dale Dawson, Montrose Shopping Park Association business administrator/event coordinator. “The crowd numbered about 23,000 on Saturday and about 26,000 on Sunday.”

For the second year Salpi Kerasimian had a booth at the festival.

“I sell handcrafted jewelry,” she said. Her unique jewelry included necklaces that she had crocheted out of material like artist wire and silver, weaving in precious stones.

“I like this [event] because it is close to my house,” she added. Kerasimian is a Crescenta Valley resident, her son Vartan is a CV High School graduate and was an Air Force JROTC cadet at the school.

Kerasimian said she liked the art festival because of the people who attended.

“This is a nice area with nice people,” she said.

There were a variety of vendors from those selling jewelry to soaps, and as diverse as those offering photographs to those who make monster masks, like those created by Mark Enright for his business Mortar Heads.

This was his first time at the festival and he had a lot of people stopping to take a closer look at his creations. Enright is an artist/sculptor of the masks that go so far beyond Halloween or costume fare that they are elevated to a work of art. Many in the CV area have already become familiar with Enright’s work, although they may not have realized it. Enright does the costumes/masks at the Halloween annual haunt, Nightmare in Whiting Woods.

For more information on Mortar Heads visit www.facebook.com/mortarheads/.

Ovenden said that the vendors were given forms to critique the Festival, so it can be even better next year, though she wasn’t at all disappointed with how things went on Saturday and Sunday.

“I thought it turned out to be a great event,” said Ovenden.

  Mary Okeefe