Sweeping Success

For the past 12 years, Peter Snellman has come to the Upper Arlington Labor Day Arts Festival as the popular and much loved “broom guy.”

In fact, the one and only year that Snellman was unable to attend, many regular festivalgoers asked event organizers why he wasn’t there.

He’s been making brooms in the 18th-century traditional style for more than 30 years. He learned the trade in the early 1980s while working at a living history museum in Iowa.

“I made a deal with the broom maker there,” says Snellman. “I bought him some antique equipment, and he taught me how to make brooms.”

Since then, Snellman has been making and selling brooms at fairs all over Ohio, including in Upper Arlington. He and his family attend about six festivals a year.

Snellman lives with his wife, LaVerda, and his daughter, Margaret, 8, in McConnelsville, Ohio, two hours southeast of Columbus. There, he has his own broom shop, where he works to keep up with the high demand for his craft.

“I work August and July to get ready for the Upper Arlington fair,” says Snellman.

Every broom he makes is completely functional and meant for everyday use.

“I decided early on that I would make utilitarian brooms instead of decorative ones,” he says. “It’s faster and more efficient to make them.”

The prices for his brooms range from $3 for a small, childsized broom to $14 for a heavy-duty outdoor work broom.

“I have gone through 800 brooms at Upper Arlington before,” says Snellman.

But if you want one of Snellman’s masterpieces, he suggests getting to his booth early.

“I sell out every year,” says Snellman. “It’s like a feeding frenzy around my booth.”

He loves coming to Upper Arlington, he says, despite the fact that his brooms don’t quite fit in with the rest of the art that is displayed and sold at the fair.

“The festival tends to have more fine art and high-price pieces, but I am always very well received,” says Snellman. “The fair is always very well run, and they look out for and take care of all the artisans. They also judge all the artists fairly for their competitions.”

Not only does he sell his brooms at the festival, he brings his antique broom making equipment from 1883 and makes some brooms on-site so patrons can see how people used to make their brooms. Devan