Posted by DavidMitchell under General News, Inverness Comments Off on Sunny Inverness Fair draws a happy throng
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A trio of East Bay bluegrass musicians known as Fog Holler on Saturday afternoon serenaded an enthusiastic crowd sitting on the lawn next to the Inverness Firehouse.
Inverness has been holding community fairs off and on since 1946, and sometimes pausing for years. The fairs, for example, stopped from 1950 to 1953.
In the June issue of Under the Gables, which is published by the Jack Mason Museum of West Marin History in Inverness, Meg Linden writes that “in 1953 there was a community fair sponsored by the Inverness Improvement Association and many other community groups, including the Inverness Garden Club, the Volunteer Fire Department, the PTA, the Inverness Recreation Council, and St Columba’s.
“In addition to normal fair activities, games, food, items for sale, it included a demonstration of military hardware by the Sixth Army Anti-Aircraft Unit from Fort Barry [Sausalito].” After that, there were no more Inverness Fairs until 1965 when an elaborate celebration was held at St. Columba’s Episcopal Church.
Bill Barrett, a director of the fair’s sponsor, the Inverness Association, told the crowd a bit of the Inverness Fair’s history.
People and dogs paced around a circle during two cake walks. When the music stopped, so did the walkers. The number under people’s feet when they stopped determined who the winners were, with the winners receiving cakes.
Martha Martinez, assistant program manager at West Marin Community Serves, serves a tostada in a booth beside the firehouse.
Kids encountering kids. Youngsters were fascinated by two young goats being tended by Kegan Stedwell. Inverness Fire Capt. John Roche brought the kids (at right) with him to the fair.
A used-book sale outside the Inverness Library raised funds for the library.
Inverness Garden Club as always sold a variety of plants during the fair.
Numerous nonprofits and local craftspeople lined Inverness Way with booths selling everything from oysters to jewelry to handwovens.
It was a day to put aside our cares. At the Outside Lands Festival, which was being celebrated at the same time in Golden Gate Park, “no fewer than 23 metal detectors awaited customers at the main gate,” The San Francisco Chronicle reported. “Beefy guards checked pockets, purses and packs.” The paper quoted San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott as saying, “We are addressing the current incidents that have occurred in the state, country, and world.”
In Inverness, however, the world on a sunny Saturday seemed far away. There were no metal detectors or searches for guns. Nor did I see a single cop. In fact, several people expressed relief at being able to escape, at least for a day, the chaos of national affairs.
“What sort of day was it?” the late CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite used to ask at the end of each installment of You Are There, a reenactment-of-history series that aired from 1953 to 1957. Then answering his own question, Cronkite would add, “A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times… and you were there.”
And I was there, but rather than try to reenact events, I’ll just show you the pictures. Yesterday at the foot of Tomales Bay, the neighboring small towns of Inverness and Point Reyes Station were filled with events that alter and illuminate our times in West Marin.
The biggest event Saturday, the Inverness Fair, as always offered a mix of music, fundraising for local civic groups, people selling arts and crafts, and good food.
The fair is held each year along Inverness Way between the firehouse and the library. On Saturday, Latinas sold Mexican food beside the firehouse to raise money for Tomales Bay Waterdogs, which teaches children living around the bay the crucial skill of swimming. (Maria Niggle at right)
The women’s aprons all said, “Thank You, Maidee Moore.” Maidee, who founded the Waterdogs almost 45 years ago, died last month at the age of 101.
A display that attracted crowds throughout the fair was this Planned Feralhood cage where young people played with kittens that were up for adoption. Kathy Runnion of Inverness Park, who heads the program, was able to find new homes for five of the nine available.
Because the kittens are in the midst of spay, neuter, and vaccination routines, the new owners could not take their cats immediately home from the fair. The delay will at least give them a few days to prepare for the kittens.
Inverness Garden Club again this year sold plants to raise funds for its civic programs. The club maintains plantings on the median of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard through downtown, at Inverness, aptly named Plant Park, at the Gables (which houses the Jack Mason Museum and Inverness Library), at the Point Reyes Station Post Office, and at the Point Reyes Station Library.
The KWMR radio van, which also provides communications for the West Marin Disaster Council, was on hand to raise funds for the community-radio station and recruit volunteers for the Disaster Council. Here Point Reyes Station Disaster Council coordinator Lynn Axelrod talks about communications with Richard Dillman as he sits inside the van.
Dillman is the communications engineer for the Disaster Council and the “transmitter wrangler” for KWMR. He spent 30 years as a special-services officer for Greenpeace, and in 2011, the environmental group donated the van to the nonprofit radio station.
Inverness Yacht Club Youth Sailing program sold grilled hotdogs as a fundraiser for its classes that have taught many young people how to sail. As a former sailboat owner, I didn’t want to be tacky, so I bought a hotdog. Yummy.
Outside the Inverness Library, used books were sold as a benefit for the library system. By the end of the fair, the sellers were offering: “All the books you can put in a shopping bag, $5!”
Tables displaying a variety of arts and crafts for sale attracted fairgoers arriving and leaving on Inverness Way.
Meanwhile in Point Reyes Station, Gallery Route One is in the midst of its annual fundraising “Box Show.”
The show is both an exhibit and a silent auction, featuring three-dimensional works that at least in part take their shape from a box. This box created by Jane Santucci is called Sail A-Weigh.
I’m Feeling Beachy is the title of the box at left, which was created by artist Geraldine Lia Braaten. The box at right, Searching for Water, is the work of artist Ellen Gray. ______________________________________________________________________
Meanwhile, five blocks away at the other end of Point Reyes Station yesterday….
Gathered below Ralph Stein’s painting Negative Spin.
Friends, relatives, and admirers of artist Ralph Stein of Point Reyes Station gathered at the Dance Palace Community Center for a memorial showing of his paintings. Stein, who was born in Milwaukee in 1928, died Feb. 24 in Sausalito surrounded by his family. An intermittent resident of Sausalito, Stein had moved to Point Reyes Station in 2012. _____________________________________________________________
Stein (right), an abstract expressionist like Jackson Pollock, had studied art in New York City.
While hanging around with other “Bohemians,” as they were called, he got to know such art-world luminaries as Pollock, William de Kooning, and Robert Motherwell.
He became a personal friend of poet Grace Paley. ___________________________________________________________________
During a reception for the memorial exhibit, Bruce Fox performed surprisingly melodic music on this steel drum from Switzerland. The UFO-shaped instrument is called a hang (pronounced hawn). By tapping on different parts of the hang, Fox was able create an impressive range of resonant notes.
Stein’s determination to become an abstract expressionist painter intensified after he suffered a stroke in 1962, which affected his language center. As a painter, he would not need to use words, he told himself. Fortunately, he was able over time to regain his ability to speak normally.
The artist’s paintings will remain on display in the lobby of the Dance Palace until Sept. 14.
Posted by DavidMitchell under General News, Inverness Comments Off on Inverness Fair provided an antidote to Weltschmerz
Celebrants at Saturday’s Inverness Fair picnicked outside the firehouse on fare that ranged from hot dogs, to beer, to burritos, to ice cream.
The Inverness Fair came when it was needed most. It was a dose of fun in wretched times: fighting in Libya, Syria, Somalia, Iraq, Yemen, and Afghanistan; terrorism in Norway, England, and Pakistan; famine in Somalia; financial chaos in the United States and Europe.
It would be easy to succumb to Weltschmerz during periods such as this. (A useful word that English borrowed from German, Weltschmerz, pronounced velt shmerts, refers to weary sadness brought on by the evils of the world, a sort of romantic pessimism.) Thankfully, for six hours Saturday on the Inverness Firehouse green, no Weltschmerz was allowed.
Among several musical groups performing were Kit Walker and Mariana Ingold. Born in Uruguay, Ingold is a composer, singer, and musician. She has made award-winning educational videos of Uruguay, Brazil, the United States and Spain. In addition, she has worked on environmental and educational projects. Ingold has released numerous albums and at present is recording with Kit Walker (left). Walker, who lives in West Marin, has recorded for Windham Hill and others. His jazz and neo-classical recordings are particularly well known. Walker and Ingold will perform again in Inverness’ Blackbird Café at 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 20.
Inverness Garden Club had rows of plants for sale, along with a table for selling alpaca “poop.” A section of herbs was labeled “THYME SQUARE.”
Outside the Inverness Library, tables overflowed with used books. Throughout the day, a constant stream of fairgoing investigators showed up to inspect the books. Further up Inverness Way, a flea market was similarly popular.
Former Shoreline School District trustee Gus Conde sold notecards to raise funds for West Marin School in Point Reyes Station.
Families ate ice cream and listened to the music while Michael Mery of Point Reyes Station manned a Marin Agricultural Land Trust table.
Sue Taylor of Point Reyes Station, selling her handwoven rugs, was one of several vendors who took part in the fair and added to its color.
