Sawdust Festival's origins Part 3

Excerpts and images from "The Sawdust Festival: The Early Years 1965-1979," published in 2005, reproduced with the permission of authors Jay Grant and Patti Ohsland

PROMOTIONAL POSTER IN 1974 BY JAMES NUSSBAUM.

HE WAS SLIMMER, THE BOOTHS WERE BIGGER, AND THE CELEBRITIES FRIENDLIER BACK IN '74 Back in 1974 when I first had my own booth, booths were huge, hours were longer and my waistline was smaller.

Here are just a few of my memories of 1974 through 1979:

dThe "if you haven't made it by now, you won't" pot luck dinners. d The nail pounding contests.

d Being able to sleep overnight in your booth. (Mine usually had a loft and the wee morning parties were often long and fun. Back then the city could care less about us.)

d Then we had the Dodge City days where Tom Leslie, the president, once kicked a wouldbe thief all the way to Woodland Drive, put an exhibitor's wares out on the street because they were pornographic and nearly died when the main power box exploded on him. Electrical outages were not uncommon in the old days.

1969'S VERSION.

d I asked to have a beer booth and was told no because this was a "family show." d Harlen had dinners every night for exhibitors.

d Board meetings were held out next to the sawdust pile where the dumpsters are now and, of course, there was no deck or buildings.

d Most remarkable, the facade changed every year and was itself a part of the art show and not a static presentation as it is today.

d Then there was the en masse resignation of nearly the entire board...wasn't this in 79?

d Once or twice the comedian Jonathan Winters came to the show, once wearing a huge red cowboy hat. He sat in my booth once for nearly 20 minutes and drove my ex wife wild with laughter. Barbara Streisand visited in 1974 or 1975 and purchased a butterfly from me. It appeared on the back of her next album. Then & Now 1965 and 1967: "Rejects Festival," artists rejected from the Festival of Arts, organized shows at a parking lot behind Jolly Roger restaurant and on a vacant

JOSHUA SMITH'S POSTER FOR 1974.

North Coast Highway lot, respectively. Prior to June '68, another splinter group started what became Art-a-Faire. 1968: Duration: six weeks Free admission No booth height limits Property secured for $900 Nonresident artists permitted Member dues: $3 Start up money: $600 1969: Bank balance: $27 Booth fee: $50, nonresidents, $60. 1970: Residency requirements. 1972: Income: $73,300 Purchase property: $225,000 1973: Gate fee: 25 cents 1975: Booth fee: $100 Gate fee: 50 cents Income: $157,000 1978: Booth fee: $150 Income: $294,000 2005: 200,000 visitors 2006: Duration: 9 weeks Booth fee: $950 202 artists 190 booths Gate fee: $7 one-day adult entry 110,000 pounds of sawdust 3 cafés, 2 snack booths 5 full time staff 202 entertainment acts As the summer art festival season gets underway, we thought readers would enjoy getting a sense of the vibe from years past as

ARTIST VIRGIL PATCH'S '68 POSTER REFLECTED THE POST-BEAT GENERATION.

chronicled by several local artists. The Sawdust Art Festival history was initially published in 2006.

ARTIST NIKKI GRANT'S '75 POSTER INCLUDED A MINI PORTRAIT OF HER HUSBAND, JAY, IN THE LOWER CORNERS. THE EUCALYPTUS GROVE THEME PREVAILED IN PROMOTIONS THROUGHOUT THE '70S.