The Wrack

Getting hundreds of cars parked in an hour is no small feat. Our volunteers were up to the task on a record-breaking Saturday.

This year's Laudholm Nature Crafts Festival was the kind of community we should all want to live in. More than 160 volunteers worked together as a tireless, friendly, and welcoming team to make 3,500 visitors and 122 participating artisans feel like there was no better place to be.

With almost 4,000 attendees over two days, the crafts festival set new attendance and gross receipts records in its 28th year. Proceeds from the event will continue to support and develop science, education, conservation, and preservation.

The local paper of record didn't print this letter to the editor these last two weeks, so we'll just publish it ourselves! Thank you again, one and all, for another great Crafts Festival. ----- For 27 years running, dedicated volunteers and the staff of the Wells Reserve and Laudholm Trust, along with hundreds of master artisans, have been proving that there is life here after Labor Day. …

We enjoyed a fantastic 26th crafts festival. Take a look at these stats:

• 2nd largest attendance this century (~3,500)
• most crafters ever (109)
• largest gross profit ever (maybe net profit too — we're still counting)
• oodles of member renewals, new members, and rejoining-after-many-years members
• 219 high-fiving volunteers
• 30 businesses donating goods
• 104 raffle items donated, valued at $8,324

We tried something new this year — awarding three People's Choice awards based on the number of raffle tickets entered into each donated piece's box.

Congratulations to these inaugural winners:

A beautiful handmade decorative piece... or something more?

The following was published in the Biddeford-Saco Journal Tribune Sunday edition, 9/1/13:

More than 100 artists will converge on the Wells Reserve at Laudholm next weekend for our 26^th annual Laudholm Nature Crafts Festival. They’re all very talented, and if you attend, I promise you’ll find some unique, beautiful, and affordable Christmas gifts months ahead of schedule.

But exceptional as these local New England artists are, I think their finest work meets it match up against the “other nature crafts show” put on by the animal kingdom on a daily basis.

On Sunday, August 26^th, I attended an afternoon concert at The Colony Hotel. One hundred fellow music lovers and I enjoyed a dozen classical piano duets by maestro Warren King and his college roommate, recording artist David Pihl. Ticket proceeds came to the Laudholm Trust – it was music played for the benefit of science. What better accompaniment to our special nature at the Reserve than the seashell symmetries of Bach’s cantatas or the sunflower melodies of Mozart?

The Laudholm Nature Crafts Festival is a premier event on the festival circuit for both exhibitors and buyers. Each year, we receive more applications than we can accept. How can you increase the likelihood of being selected?

Yesterday was Quilt Day, an annual event bringing together a congenial group of cutters and stitchers to prepare pieces for the quilt that will be raffled at September's "crafts festival. It's customary for those who have a hand in the work to sign a piece of fabric that is later attached to the finished quilt. Thirty-three people contributed during the 5-hour session in Mather Auditorium. Lynn Jourdan coor…