Crafters sense good times ahead
By Will Hoover
Advertiser Staff Writer
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
Janet Holaday, who makes colorful silkscreen fabric designs, theorizes that Honolulu craft fairs can be a reasonably accurate economic barometer. In nearly three decades of operating a booth at the Pacific Handcrafters Guild's festivals in Thomas Square, she has seen it all.
Silk screener Janet Holaday, who has been selling at the Pacific Handcrafters craft fairs for 29 years, says sellers are coming back.
"It's grown and shrunk and it's growing again,"
Holaday said yesterday, at the start of this weekend's 29th Annual Fall Festival of Art & Fine Crafts.
"This last couple of years, with the economy being bad and the war and everything, we were just scraping by with between 50 and 60 booths. But this has been a wonderful turnout. I've done really well today."
Festival first-timer Cinzia Stepp, who makes intricate wood-burned nature designs on platters, gift boxes and small furniture, concurred.
"Sales have been good," she said. "I have been enjoying it a lot. I'm coming back for the Christmas Festival."
Not everyone at the festival was quite so optimistic.
Ron Fitch, who operates Pots By Ron & Maureen with his wife, said he had been part of the Thomas Square festivals almost as long as Holaday, and wasn't seeing any turnaround.
"I wouldn't put my money on the economy based on today's sales," said Fitch, an electrical engineering consultant who makes stoneware pottery for relaxation.
"I've had better sales. I'm not sure what caused it, but interest in craft fairs just seemed to drop off."
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
But fair coordinator Uilani Mokiao said you could get an idea of which way the local economy is headed by counting the number of booths at the fair.
Cinzia Stepp made her first appearance at the Pacific Handcrafters Guild Fall Festival of Art & Fine Crafts at Thomas Square this weekend, showing wood items burned with nature designs. The fair continues today.
Traditionally, the Christmas Festival is Thomas Square's biggest of the year. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the December craft fair hit an all-time low of barely 50 booths — compared with the heady 1990s, when the holiday fair would boast as many as 200 booths, Mokiao said.
By the time the Summer Festival rolled around last July, the number of booths had crept back up to 80. Yesterday, it was around 100.
If the booth count is up to 130 or more during the Christmas Festival, Dec. 6 and 7, Mokiao says Hawai'i could be on its way to good times again.
Still, even as she hoped for the best, Mokiao was struck by an impromptu crisis. The woman who brought in the inflatable attraction was unhappy.
"She's not making money" Mokiao said. "It costs $300 to load up the inflatable and pay an employee to be here, and she's made $20. She feels bad about it, but she has to make money, too. She says she's willing to leave the inflatable here if I can find someone to man it.
"So I will," Mokiao said, ever resilient. "That's what I do here — put out the fires."
The Fall Festival continues today from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8038.
