Coupeville
Arts & Crafts Festival
50th
Anniversary Celebrating half a century of giving back to the community A supplement to the Whidbey News-Times and The Whidbey Examiner
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COUPEVILLE ARTS & CRAFTS FESTIVAL ANNIVERSARY
AUGUST 2014
Festival starts in 1964 to help town By Michelle Beahm
In 1964, shortly after Treva Carter moved to Coupeville, she received a knock on her door. Walt Sewell with the Front Street Development Committee had a question. Did she want to run the first Arts and Crafts Festival in Coupeville? “People are very cooperative,” he told her. Carter said they were familiar with her artwork because she had sold a few paintings in town and Sewell thought, “She’s connect with other area artists.” “He was absolutely right,” Carter said. Mike Dessert, current president and unofficial historian of the festival’s board, said a group of people gathered in May of that year to plan the festival for the second week of August. Dessert said Carter went driving around the area, stopping when she spotted a group of people to ask if they knew any other artists who might be interested in showing their work in the festival. “A group of building owners got together and decided they needed to spruce up downtown,” Dessert said. Carter said he suggested an art show that would attempt to bring traffic to a then-struggling Front Street that housed many unoccupied buildings. “They were very kind and
allowed us to put displays in their windows,” Carter said. In preparation for the festival, the community got together to make downtown more festival ready. Dessert said the garden club cleaned up the streets and potted plants. Volunteers painted the buildings in town, following the color-coordinating scheme designed by Albert Heath. He came up with a plan so the buildings would contrast and complement the background of Penn Cove. “During the festival … everyone was encouraged to fly flags, everyone was encouraged to leave their lights on all night and people brought lawn chairs … so people had a place to sit down and rest,” Dessert said. “People were very responsive,” Carter said. Volunteers spent weeks cleaning out a building that formerly housed a plumbing business and turned it into an art gallery. Because it was just starting out, the festival organizers teamed up with the Central Whidbey Chamber of Commerce and the Sportsman Club salmon derby. During the festival, Dessert said some people dressed up in period costumes. In historical records, Dessert said he learned that “Cecil Perkins in his full, white beard and his wife Lois dressed up in pioneer costumes and strolled up and down Front Street.” He went on to add that they
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Photos from 1964 Coupeville Arts and Crafts Festival provided by the Island County Historical Museum.
“were reputed to be the most photographed couple in town.” Carl Dean was another costumed attendee of the first festival, and according to Dessert, he drove the 1902 Holsman motorized carriage, the first motorized vehicle on the Island, up and down Front Street, giving rides. “I don’t know how she (Carter) developed her vision for the show,” said Benye Webber, who has been part of the festival since 1965. “But it was a great one.”
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COUPEVILLE ARTS & CRAFTS FESTIVAL ANNIVERSARY
Festival’s draw continues to grow By Janis Reid
This year, for once, Benye Webber is going to kick back and let someone else run the Coupeville Arts and Crafts Festival. “We’re going to do some shopping, see what’s there,” Webber said. “We’re excited about it and thrilled to see where it’s gone.” Webber, who has been involved in the festival in one way or another since 1965, said that while specifics of the festival have changed, its goal hasn’t. “The vision hasn’t changed,” Webber said. “I can see it going on for another 50 years. Webber was chair of the information booth since she was president roughly a dozen years ago. “It’s the heart and soul of many of us,” Webber said. “When I came here, I felt like I had come home.” Though the festival now takes place on the street, the first Arts and Crafts Festival took place mostly inside the buildings, according to Mike Dessert, current festival president. Dessert has taken on the role of festival historian and has gathered as much historical information as he could. For the first festival, Albert Heath worked out a color scheme for painting the buildings so they would contrast with Penn Cove as a background; thus, blue was not used, Dessert said. History was as important then as it is now to the community, and local historian Jimmie Jean Cook gave talks on the history of Front Street buildings. The festival included children’s activities, displays of local artists’ work, and
the first art gallery in Coupeville. Art was collected from both the Coupeville and Oak Harbor school districts and displayed in Races’ drug store as the “Children’s Gallery.” It was rumored to be very popular, Dessert said. Grace and Alexander streets were unpaved, as was the Coupeville Recreation Hall parking lot. The areas weren’t paved until the 1970s, Webber said. “It was all about saving Front Street,” Webber said. “I was simply enthralled with that.” According to her, there were about 25 artists in the first festival, and according to newspaper reports of the day, it drew roughly 2,000 people. Today, the festival features hundreds of artists and artisans, drawing more than 10,000 people to the event each year. “It really draws people,” Webber said. “It’s because they’re so friendly and so giving. We were so welcomed by so many people.” “From the start, the Coupeville Arts and Crafts Festival has been all about the
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COUPEVILLE ARTS & CRAFTS FESTIVAL ANNIVERSARY
First royalty court holds fond festival memories By Jessie Stensland
Young royalty reigned in the early years of the Coupeville Arts and Crafts Festival. Back in 1964, a teenage Carolyn Hancock, recently crowned as Miss Naval Air Whidbey, ceremoniously declared the first festival open. The next year, a larger group of ceremonially monarchs held court over the festival. Three Coupeville teenagers — Pamela Harrison, Alana Franzen and Jackie George — were the first Coupeville Arts and Crafts Festival princesses. Harrison had the honor of being crowned as queen of the festival. The practice of having royalty at the festival has faded into history, but memories of those days remain vivid.
The former Miss Naval Air Whidbey, who is now Carolyn Brazas of Anacortes, still remembers that afternoon in August of 1964. She said she and her escort, fellow student Denny Clark, got onto a boat at Cornet Bay and traveled to the Coupeville Wharf. She remembers she was wearing a fluffy, pink dress and a tiara. Treva Carter, the chairwoman of the first festival and an original organizer, handed her a bouquet of gladiolas; she cut a ribbon and declared the start of the new festival. “It was fun,” she said. “It was just great fun.” Carolyn explained that Carter, the chairwoman of the first festival and an original organizer, was a family friend and asked her to open the festival since she had been named
Miss Naval Air Whidbey. Several Coupeville girls had been named as Miss Naval Air Whidbey in the 1960s; Carolyn was chosen among eight candidates in 1964 after a questionand-answer session. She was sponsored by the Coupeville Lions. As Miss Naval Air Whidbey, Carolyn was part of a group of military royalty from around the state that welcomed the fleet at Seafair and took part in the Torchlight Parade. Back home in Coupeville, Carolyn got out of the fluffy dress after the ceremony and helped at the waffle booth put
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Photos from the 1964 and 1965 Coupeville Arts and Crafts Festival provided by the Island County Historical Museum. Carolyn Hancock opens the first festival.
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COUPEVILLE ARTS & CRAFTS FESTIVAL ANNIVERSARY
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Festival’s first queen credits mother with win From page 4 on by the Methodist Youth Fellowship. She said she remembers how the batter was made in a bucket and mixed with a beater on the end of a power drill. The following year, the festival organizers crowned some royalty of their own. Pamela Harrison-Young, who was then a teenage Pamela Harrison, was part of the court that included her friends Alana Franzen and Jackie George. Pamela was crowned as queen among the princesses because she sold the most raffle tickets. She gives her mother, Lyla Harrison, the actual credit for peddling the tickets to her customers at her popular Coupeville business, Lyla’s Styling Room. “They probably wanted to keep her happy otherwise she might give them a bad haircut,” she joked.
The queen and the princesses traveled to other events in the region in order to publicize the Arts and Crafts Festival. She remembers riding on a parade float that sported a small replica of a block house. “We had to wear these redand-white checkered, really ugly pioneer dresses with bonnets,” Pamela said with a laugh. As a cheerleader in Coupeville, Pamela found the job of being a festival queen to be a lot of fun. The only negative thing about the experience, she recalls, is that she lost her mother’s diamond-encrusted watch, likely while she was waving at admirers. “It was really bad,” she said. The first royal festival court in 1965 included Queen Pamela Harrison-Young and princesses Alana Franzen and Jackie George. Vin Sherman acted as escort to Harrison and Christy Carter, Miss NAS Whidbey 1965 also attended.
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AUGUST 2014
COUPEVILLE ARTS & CRAFTS FESTIVAL ANNIVERSARY
Artist got his start at 1965 festival By Ron Newberry
His paintings caught the eyes of a former Washington state governor and an ex-NBA coach. But even before Tony Turpin’s art started turning heads on the Seattle art scene and beyond in the 1970s, he’d already gained a big admirer in a longtime newspaper publisher on Whidbey Island. “He had a passionate following,” said Wallie Funk, who ran both the Whidbey News-Times and South Whidbey Record. “Tony’s collections are all over the place.” Funk was among the Turpin art collectors back then and remains both a fan and close friend of the Oak Harbor artist. Funk got to know Turpin when he interviewed him for an August, 1965 article about a Navy lieutenant with artistic gifts. Turpin, then 26, had mostly kept his talent out of the public eye until showing some of his paintings at the Coupeville Arts and Crafts Festival that year. It led to Funk helping organize the “Turpin Art Show” three months later in a lounge called The Empire Room at the Queen Ann Motel in Oak Harbor. “That was really the launch of the start of my work,” Turpin said. After finishing a five-year stint in the Navy, Turpin attended the Art Center College of
Left: Tony Turpin still resides on Whidbey Island and has created a reputation with his artwork. Above: Turpin was featured in The Whidbey News-Times in 1965.
Design in Los Angeles for two Evans, who bought a painting years then eventually plunged for his wife in 1974 that showed into the world of a full-time a Whidbey barn destined for the working artist. governor’s mansion. Turpin’s paintings, drawings At around the same time, forand etchings have appeared in mer Seattle SuperSonics coach art shows and galleries in the Lenny Wilkens purchased one Puget Sound area and beyond of Turpin’s paintings and invited since the early 1970s. him to a party at his home. Spots in prominent shows “I was the shortest person in in Seattle and Bellevuetoignited the entire room,” Turpin said. Welcome his early popularity. His landThe Highland Yet, artistically, Turpin scape paintings of Whidbey Games standing tall for four scenes were a favorite to some, has been & Greenbank Farm including former governor Dan decades, producing both realWe are a non-profit organizations managing this 151 acre historic farm.
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istic and abstract works from paintings to sculptures. He calls his work “eclectic” because “I don’t have a recognizable style.” “He is superb in detail,” Funk said. “And he’s also one hell of an individual.” Although Turpin spent 26 years in the Naval reserves and 19 as a college art instructor, he credits his wife, Elizabeth, for allowing him to fully pursue his passion. Clean & Light Your PROPANE
“I couldn’t have done it without her,” he said. “How do you think we ate? She had insurance and a regular paycheck. I brought home fresh kill when I could.” Turpin and his wife will celebrate their 50-year wedding anniversary in January. They got married in the same Coupeville town where he displayed some of his work for public view on the island for the first time. Now 75, Turpin still goes into his Oak Harbor studio everyday and works on his art in some fashion. He’s represented by Island International Artists, which sells his etchings, and also is affiliated with art galleries in Seattle and Langley. He laughs when he’s asked
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AUGUST 2014
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COUPEVILLE ARTS & CRAFTS FESTIVAL ANNIVERSARY
There’s satisfaction in art if he’s ever earned enough money from his artwork to qualify for “making a living,” guessing that he might’ve succeeded that way during maybe three years of his art career. But he knows he’s been paid in other ways from the rich friendships he’s developed on the island and the ability to pursue a love that started as a child and an area of study he was drawn to as an adult. “You learn to live with a great deal of ambiguity,” he said. “And a great deal of not quite getting there yet. Every now and then there’s a moment of satisfaction when you think you did it right.”
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Did you know? n In 1968, now Island County Superior Court Judge Alan Hancock, John Stone, of Captain Whidbey fame, and Dennis Argent sold watermelons to raise money for a Peace Corps project in Africa. It was Alan Hancock who came up with the idea to put all the various concessions in one place, as early on they were scattered all over the festival. Thus, the food court as we know it was born.
n People were asked to fly their flags during the festival to give the town a more festive look. People downtown were asked to leave their lights on all night. People brought lawn chairs and picnic tables to Front Street for people to use.
n Pamela Harrison Young remembers her mother mixing pancake batter using a drill motor in a five gallon bucket for pancakes and strawberries they sold at a concession booth at the festival as a fund raiser for the Methodist youth fellowship.
n The first festival received an award from the governor. The Coupeville Arts and Craft festival received this award for “outstanding participation in the diamond Jubilee anniversary of statehood program of the State of Washington 1964.”
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AUGUST 2014
COUPEVILLE ARTS & CRAFTS FESTIVAL ANNIVERSARY
Giving back a huge focus for festival By Megan Hansen
In the 50 years the Coupeville Arts and Crafts Festival has been in operation, the festival association has given hundreds of thousands of dollars back to the community. What was first called the Front Street Development Association, the group’s main goal was revitalizing the town. Records show the first funds raised by the festival were distributed in 1969 to the Town of Coupeville for Front Street lighting and garbage cans. In 1970, grants were given to replace garbage cans and almost $3,000 was given to maintain the town restrooms and to purchase the blockhouse, which now sits at the Island County Historical Museum. Records show the association has donated nearly $165,000 to the town for various projects and maintenance. Dessert said the association has paid for the paving of roads as well as the renovation of Coupeville Recreation Hall. While the first festival started in 1964, the association wasn’t incorporated as
a 501c4 nonprofit and a board wasn’t elected until 1965, said current association president Mike Dessert. Initially, grants were distributed between the chamber and sportsman clubs for various projects and much of the focus was on revitalization. As the association was incorporated, that focus became not only revitalization, but also preservation. In the mid 1980s the group started supporting the school district’s History Day program, something they still do today. Combined with other small grants for various school projects and needs, the festival association has donated nearly $38,000 to Coupeville High School and more than $30,000 to Coupeville Elementary School. Dessert said that over the years other groups have formed to focus on preservation, so the association has become more focused on the arts. In 1989 the association provided nearly $30,000 in seed money to start the Coupeville Arts Center, which is now known as the Pacific Northwest Art School. Since then, the association has
donated more than $86,000 to the school. The group’s coffers have helped groups and organizations all over Central Whidbey, including $78,000 to the Island County Historical Museum, $9,500 to Gifts From the Heart Food Bank, thousands of dollars to various festivals and more than $50,000 in student scholarships. Each year groups and individuals can apply for grants. Dessert said the association serves the 98239 zip code and when awards grants, looks for projects that focus on historical preservation, provide cultural enrichment and show an appreciation of the arts. And it’s not just the money the association has given to the community over the years, it’s the partnerships. Each year the Coupeville Boys and Girls Club manages parking for the festival, earning the program funds. History Day students collect garbage during the festival while other groups help run various parts like the beer and wine garden or the information booth.
Association President Mike Dessert discusses the impact the Arts and Crafts Festival has had on the community during a 50th anniversary reception. Photo by Keven R. Graves/Whidbey News Group.
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