Cayce Wrap

Photos of Cayce Festival

Yesterday’s Festival of the Arts brought out a constant stream of visitors. Mike Long and I arrived at 8:00 AM to set up the tent. Because we didn’t have weights to anchor the posts (we were situated on a blacktop driveway), Mike went to a nearby rental agency and brought back two heavy cement cylinders with hooks on top. We tied the tent’s frame to them, and a lucky thing we did. 

Our tent was located in front of Brooklyn Cayce High School.

The man I'm talking to bought a copy of Kedzie.

Visitors were mostly adults, some of them out for an afternoon walk. The artists, writers, and other vendors at the festival provided a variety of unique offerings, from carved gourds to pine straw baskets to leather bracelets. 

There are history buffs everywhere.

There were book buyers in the bunch. Since Mike and I both write historical fiction, we attracted similar readers. Some people stopped by just to talk about history, and we got a chance to talk about our research. 

A visitor inspects Mike's credentials.

This little boy really wanted to buy a book.

 I spotted an artist whose work I admired last year at the SC State Fair—Joong Kim, whose tent was a short walk from ours. He paints delicate watercolors with birds and cherry blossoms. A painting I couldn’t resist was a wide tree painted in shades of gray, rather like a ragged texture. Color appeared as small birds perched on a limb. When I returned to Joong's tent with my checkbook, somebody else was buying it. Drats! I bought the one below as a consolation.

Korean artist Joong Kim's painting of a fish pond.

Wind gusts were were up to 40 MPH. The vendors across the promenade from us took down their tent. There were moments when we grabbed the ropes to tighten them to the weights to hold down the tent.

With such a wind, you can forget about keeping your hair in place.

A big moment for me was when a visitor bought copies of each of my books (Yippee!). It didn’t occur to me that I might need bags for purchases. It was a good festival and all the better with Mike to share what seemed like a long day by 4:30 PM.