Artisans

Festival | Artisans | Entertainment | Schedule | Food

2010 Invited Artisans and Makers of Fine Craft
2010 Guest Artists' Show in the Lodge
Previous Guest Artists 

Each year the Filberg Festival features more than 120 of the best artisans from across Canada. Booths nestled amongst the towering trees of the Filberg Park are full of hidden treasures and one-of-a-kind items, making the Festival a shopper's dream!

Each year you can expect to find a variety of work in various mediums, including:

• Accessories
• Art
• Ceramics
• Clothing & Textiles
• Glass
• Home and Garden Décor
• Jewellery
• Kids Stuff & Toys
• Leather
• Metal
• Miscellaneous
• Musical Instruments
• Photography
• Sculpture
• Soaps and Lotions
• Specialty Foods
• Wood

The Festival also features a different Guest Artist each year. The Guest Artist sets up in the Lodge and offers demos throughout the event. Last year, five artisans shared the Guest Artist distinction, in honour of the Year of the Craft. They were Jeff Burnette, Deb Dumka, Jennifer Graham, Kaija Rautiainen and Wayne Ngan. Other past Guest Artists have included Robert Amos (2006), Fibres and Beyond (2005), David Popham and Wendy Pierson (2004), Fired Up (2003), Ted Harrison and Margaret Hansen (2002), Douglas Senft (2001) and Roy Henry Vickers (2000).

The Jury Process

Artisans in the Festival are juried, meaning that anyone who wished to participate would be required to send in actual samples of their work for a group of people to evaluate.

For many years this jury was made up of four or five people - experts in fine arts, textiles, wood and ceramics. We now have 11 jurors - three experts in ceramics who only evaluate that media, two in jewellery, one in fine arts, textiles, wood, a generalist with experience in more than one media, and two experts in soaps and lotions who only jury those entries. For several years, the Craft Association of BC has provided most of our Jurors - all are experts in their field, teachers, and/or working professionals. The specialty food items have a separate process where their four submissions are divided and tasted/sampled by at least four separate people.

Each participant now also gets an opportunity to explain their process in writing and to send in photos to show the range and variety of their work. Competition varies within categories, with jewellery being the most competitive in 2007 - more than 55 entries. There are no guaranteed spots year to year, and the mix of artisans changes annually.

2007 was the Festival's 25th year. It was also Craft Year 2007 and the year the Comox Valley was designated a Culture Capital of Canada by Heritage Canada. To celebrate all these significant, simultaneous occurrences, artisans travelling from the Eastern and Northern parts of our wide country were offered travel grants to enable the show to be truly national. We are happy to say we were successful in attracting artisans from BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and the Yukon to last year's show.

If you would like contact information for any artisans you may have seen from last year's show call or email and it will be made available to you.