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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (July 8, 2010)
5 OREGON COUNTRY FAIR 2010 5 Raven Moon White Light Crystal Michael Bertotti Booth Number L29 Michael Bertotti began as a Saturday Market crafter, and remembers the days when the Country Fair organizers used to visit the market booths and give out applications, encouraging crafters to sign up for Fair booth space. “There wasn’t really a system,” he says, “so I just went to them and said, ‘Can I be in the Fair?’ and they said, ‘Whaddaya got?’ They went and looked at my booth and said I could do it.” There’s a little dispute in the records about when this actually was. Bertotti believes he began his Fair booth in 1980, but Fair records of Bertotti’s booth go back only to 1981. “Either they weren’t keeping records or we weren’t,” he laughs. When Bertotti joined Saturday Market in ’78, or maybe ’76 — “Memory … not so good!” he jokes — he made windchimes out of old silverware. He began adding crystals to the windchimes, and then shifted to making “crystal sunbeamers,” strings of Swarovski crystals that scatter light into rainbows. Bertotti came to Eugene from Modesto, Calif., in his early 20s, around 1976, to be with a lady and go to school. “I didn’t realize I was on the long-term program!” he says. “The Fair’s a pretty special place. It was designed to interface with people, to educate them about different ways of living, and that you can make a living through art and heal and transform society,” Bertotti says. “Things always change over time, but there’s still a lot of magic out there. It’s what we call this indescribable thing that makes things work against all odds. Sometimes the most magical things happen.” Bertotti tells of a woman asking him what kind of pass she needed for her vehicle. “I was telling her what you need to do is go get this kind of pass, and I was just kind of pointing to say, ‘Over there,’ you know, and at this point a fairy lady came by and put a pass in my hand.” Yes, it was the pass she needed. Bertotti and the lady were dumbfounded, but the little girls with her knew it was a real fairy that provided the pass, and began dancing around singing about the fairy. “Sometimes there’s no explaining it,” Bertotti says. “It happens.” K ONLY! E E W ORGANIC Levana Appletree Booth Number 347 Levana Appletree came out here from Colorado in ’81 with a group of people from a cooperative house they called Appletree. Boulder was beautiful, but Levana was ready to sink her roots into the green hills of Oregon. When the Appletree house arrived in Eugene, they were told about the Country Fair. “You couldn’t be here without hearing about it,” she recalls. “We went out to the Fair but for only two hours. We didn’t know anything about it, so we went out late in the day and realized there was this entire world out there, a whole universe. We’d never listen live Santa Cruz Organics ON E Bright Promise Tie Dye seen anything like it.” In the early ’80s, Oregon experienced a bad recession, and Mount St. Helens had erupted the year before the Appletrees arrived in Eugene. “We were basically considered insane to be looking for work in Oregon since all these calamities were happening,” Levana says. “When we found the Fair, we thought that was a sign that we had made the right choice.” The next year the group managed to get a Fair booth, an unheard of feat considering that they had never sold at Saturday Market, never even made any crafts to sell. But another member of the group, Wahaba, taught Levana to tie dye. “This was incredible luck, so I of course hung on to the booth for dear life,” Levana says. Her Saturday Market booth came later in the ’80s, and these days Levana also works around town doing landscaping and organic gardening. Levana’s son, Yona, helps her with the booth and also provides Fair entertainment — fi re dancing, juggling, unicycling. “We defi ned our own reality, we made our own normal. And it’s true for hundreds of people, not just a couple of us,” Levana says. “People are attracted to this normal we created and it begins to be something people want for themselves. You begin to think twice and think maybe organic food is a good idea and maybe biodiesel makes sense. These things we’ve been saying for how many years suddenly don’t seem so crazy anymore. I’ve been there long enough to see that and that’s the most satisfying thing.” oregon country fair LEMONADES July 9,10 & 11 Lemonade, Limeade, Strawberry Lemonade & Mango Lemonade 89¢ reg. $3.19 Crystal Geyser GALLONS OF WATER reg. $1.49 Pr ice s g RR d July 8 Ju ly 16 D Limit 6 S er cust R mer NF Hoops & Wings & Poi! Oh Boy! Elemental Herbs SPF 20 Sunscreen Organic & Chemical-free reg. $19.39 Price g RR ly $9.95 COUNTRY FAIR GEAR IS HERE! 30 89¢ u ly d J 8 Ju 0 Sand bags, tapestries, sarongs & incense 0 Hemp, Og. Cotton & Bamboo Clothing 0 Tshirts & Hoodies & Backpacks & Hats 0 Glass Pipes 1$785$/)22'6 1 . e, n R A traditi R n st R r u ris al natural f RR ds e 1 9 c hing R u r c R mmunity sin WK +LO\DUGRSHQGDLO\DPSP WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM • BLOGS.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM 0 Hula Hoops, Fairy Wings & Skirts, and Poi & Art from Eugene's Best LOCALLY MADE PRODUCTS ARE OUR SPECIALTY Get yo-self a PIECE! We're GRATEFUL for your support! Mon-Sat 10-7 / Sun 12-5 Corner of 11th & Willamette in downtown Eugene EUGENE WEEKLY JULY 8, 2010 13
