Antiques and Uniques festival works to preserve the past

How can society keep innovation and technology moving at a healthy speed while still maintaining an appreciation for the slow manual labor of creating quality items? It’s nearly impossible to not have an e-mail address these days and so much work, correspondence, and shopping takes place online now. It has both simplified and made more complex people’s daily lives and while this way of life proceeds, precious skills are being lost. Are there any young adults and teens these days who are able to write in cursive?

Antiques and Uniques festival on Craftsbury Common works to keep the beauty of the old and the forgotten a part of summer every year. Going strong into its forty-eighth festival, a partnership has formed with the Old Stone House Museum of Brownington. After the two organizations had a meeting a couple of weeks ago they quickly realized that their goals are very much the same and the one statement that became a theme was, “How do we make the art of ‘slow’ and ‘quality’ and ‘tradition’ cool enough to generate interest from the youth?”

Last year Antiques and Uniques added a vintage fashion show that brought the unique looks of the eras of the 1920s through the 1990s to the festival grounds. A diverse group of 18 models trotted down the runway in their outfits that matched the genre of music and the crowd loved it. This year, the Old Stone House Museum has hopes of bringing the children’s outfits of the 1800s on to the runway.

Live demonstrations by the vendors and some new guests will be woven into the lineup of booths. There will be a loom demonstration, a basket weaver, carver, and cobbler. People can watch how those antique tools were really used — and, yes, many of them still work. Of course, they still take time to create the final product.

Antiques and Uniques is a free event open to all with an all-local foods barbecue, antiques dealers, Vermont artists, and live folk music. The event is on Craftsbury Common on Saturday, July 14. Vendor applications are now being accepted. For more information e-mail [email protected], or visit townofcraftsbury.com. — submitted by Anne-Marie Keppel.