Annual craft festival to feature only handcrafted, made-in-USA items

Forget stock market tables and economic forecasts. Know what could be just as valid an indicator of the state of the economy?

Attendance at craft shows. And if that's true, it just may be that the economy finally is turning around.

For Southern Nevadans who wish to test this particular economic thesis, the return of The Great Craft Festival to Cashman Center this weekend would be a good place to gather data.

The three-day show will feature 200 booths manned by craftspeople from throughout the United States who will be selling handmade jewelry, leather goods, pottery, wood and fiber items, glass, sculpture, toys, fine art, weavings and food.

Steve Powers, the festival's director, says this weekend's event will be the 28th at Cashman. Powers, a former craftsman himself -- "I dropped out of San Diego State in 1969 to make leather belts. My parents loved that. They were thrilled." -- has been staging craft shows since 1975, first in San Diego and then expanding to other markets throughout the West.

"In that time frame, we've had, what, two or three bad recessions and maybe one other smaller one," he says.

Powers has noticed that, when times are tough, attendance drops off as consumers tighten the financial reins. He also has noticed that, when tough times do come, declining craft show attendance reflects that early on.

"We're usually the first to get hit and the last to recover," Powers says. So, when craft show attendance softened during the fall of 2007, Powers suspected something "was in the wind."

"So, we just pulled in our horns and got ready for it, and we were correct. It got pretty messy over the next two years."

However, Powers says more recent shows indicate that things are improving and consumers again seem willing to spend.

This weekend's show will feature exhibitors from Nevada, Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Montana and Texas. Powers says his shows differ from some others in that they feature only made-in-America items handcrafted by the exhibitors. Mass-produced, commercial or imported items are not permitted.

Among this weekend's exhibitors will be Las Vegas artist Joy Dagenais, who uses Tokay grapevines from the Napa Valley to create wine bottle holders, lamps and other decorative pieces.

Dagenais, who has been crafting the items for 15 years, says she got the idea after seeing similar pieces at a wine festival in Germany. Now, she and her husband each year travel to about 35 craft shows throughout the West and Southwest.

Dagenais, too, sees a direct linkage between the state of the economy and craft show attendance. During the past few years, "things got really bad," she says, but "our product is so unusual that we don't really have a problem."

Dagenais' pieces range in price from about $8.95 for wine bottle stoppers and $29 for wine bottle holders to $159 for tabletop fountains/waterfalls.

"My high-end product is the wine bottle waterfalls," she says. "They're not selling as good, but my wine bottle holders I cannot keep on the shelves.

"I have seen, the last couple (of) shows, that people are reaching into their pocket and actually spending, rather than looking. You can have a lot of people at craft shows, but not have a lot of them spending."

Dagenais suspects craft buyers also find it appealing that she's taking items that otherwise are burned and turning them into something lasting.

"I'm recycling. I'm going green," says Dagenais, whose work also can be seen at her website (www.KKWine Fountains.com).

Dagenais says the vines she uses have "to be a certain shape and size to work. And one of the characteristics of the Tokay grapevine is, when they grow old, especially around 100 years old, they tend to hollow out in the center. So we have to pick and choose those carefully so you get good wood and something that would last forever."

Contact reporter John Przybys at jprzybys@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0280.