Artists Practicing Policy of Waste Not, Want Not

By CRAIG D REBER

WHAT: Galena Country Fair WHEN: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. today WHERE: Grant Park, Galena, Ill. More than 150 vendors selling original, handmade arts, crafts, and fine arts. Farmers’ markets, live entertainment, children’s games, and more. Donation: $2.

GALENA, Ill. – Rachel Haynes and Terry Allendorf believe in recycling.

“My grandfather said don’t ever throw anything out until you make sure it can be used for something else,” said Haynes, of Altona, Ill. “We call it repurposing today.”

Haynes and Allendorf, of Dubuque, are among the 157 artisans and crafters at the 29th annual Galena Country Fair at Grant Park.

Business was brisk for Haynes who operates Stray Cat Art. She uses recycled and reclaimed materials, including 55-gallon barrels, freon tanks, car parts and even aircraft parts to make decorative art and sculpture pieces. There was a metal dog welded onto a Western Flyer tricycle and a Singer sewing machine turned into a tractor.

Her grandfather taught her how to recycle. He made mobiles out of discarded coffee cans, servers and utensils.

“Sometimes the inspiration for a work emerges from an original part or piece – when I find something, I see what else it can be,” Haynes said. “I was doing it for 15 years before it became cool.”

Haynes’imagination was on display Saturday. There was a wide variety of curious golf birds to intricately detailed disc trellises, featuring fish, hummingbirds, butterflies, field and game.

“If you’re not smiling when you’re in here, then you’re in a really bad mood,” she said.

Allendorf crafts clocks from CDs and others from computer hard drives. Most of his timekeepers are made out of 40-to-50 year old computer parts. He’s been doing it for about 12 years.

“My son was a computer geek, and he used to soup up computers in the

basement of the house,” Allendorf said. “He moved away and I went down one day to clean his mess up, and I saw these 3 1/2 inch hard drives with the covers off and I thought,’Oh, those are too nice to throw away.’So I thought what can I do with them? And that’s what I decided to do with them.”

Allendorf does about a half dozen shows annually. He’s been at Galena for eight or nine.

“You could never tell the stock market crashed,” he said. “It’s been good today. The Chicago people have pockets full of money and they’ve got to spend it.”

The fair is organized by the Galena Country Fair Planning Committee. The committee strives to meet the goals of Jo Daviess County Country Fair Charities, Inc., a fundraising organization with a mission to facilitate and assist charitable causes throughout the county. This year, more than $78,000 was awarded in grants and donations to Jo Daviess County organizations.

“It takes a lot of work, but we’re so proud of where the money goes,” said Pat Smith, vendor chairwoman.

Smith said it takes 500 volunteers to put on the fair. She expects the event to attract between 12,000 to 15,000 visitors.

Originally published by CRAIG D REBER TH staff writer/creber@wcinetcom.

(c) 2008 Telegraph – Herald (Dubuque). Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.