The organizers at Kempenfest boast this year that there are “over 350 arts, crafts and antique exhibitors. 24 food vendors. 2 Stages featuring over 40 hours of programming. The Midway. The Kids Village. It’s all waiting, just for you.”
One of those critical components that make Kempenfest such a special event each year in Barrie, is the artist exhibitor.
There are countless artistic genres on offer around the bay this year, as with most years, ranging from photography, oil painting, charcoal drawings, and handwoven art pieces, to name a few.
Michael McNeil of Practical Art, based in St. Marys near Stratford, is a hand-crafter of metalwork art.
McNeil has set up his booth here for over 25 years. “It just keeps getting a little busier,” he says.
What is his favourite part of Kempenfest?
“The volume of sales would be the best part,” he says smiling, “and being on the lake. It’s a great venue.”
Brittany Balics, of Reiner’s Originals Ottomans in Orillia, a regular vendor each year selling handmade whimsical leather ottomans that resemble animals, lists the top sellers this year.
“The moose has been the favourite one so far, with the bear a close second. My favourite is the elephant though,” she says.
She does have a small beef with the organizers of the event: “It’s too short,” Balics admits, “but I like meeting a lot of fun people, and there are tons of people all day. There is no downtime here.”
Michael Pape, an artist with a booth at Kempenfest each year, has been creating art since he was little, saying that “art picked me, I didn’t pick it.”
His hyper-realistic art captures the emotion and essence of each one of the animals, which are based on real animals that he has come in contact with over the years.
“I’ve been here many years now, too many to recall,” he says, “I’ve been in tornadoes here, I’ve been in rainstorms here, but also lots of beautiful weather too. It’s been a whole bag of things. If you get into bad weather here, it can be tough. The crowds though, as you can see, are good.”
Kevin Joyce of Riverview Fine Art Studio in Lindsay has been a vendor at the festival since 2007. “It’s a good mix here with jewellery, fine art, pottery, clothing and entertainment. It’s all here.”
“A lot of the vendors, we really look forward to this show every year. We have regular customers that come by every year and buy a piece off us, and the vendors ourselves contribute a lot to the economy of Barrie, with the hotels and restaurants,” he adds.
Joyce appreciates the effort that goes into making Kempenfest what it is year after year. “I would rather come here than a lot of places, and I have to say, the organizers are very accommodating with vendors as far as letting us park our vehicles behind the booths. If you’ve done this show enough times, sometimes you get some pretty bad weather up here, and you have to be able to load your inventory into the van quick, because you’ve got thousands of dollars worth of stuff.”
Kempenfest continues through the weekend until Monday at 6 p.m.
