Scouting for holiday arts and crafts

The historical re-enactors and history buffs arriving in Cape Girardeau this weekend for the bicentennial commemoration of Lewis and Clark's stop here will be joined by thousands of others exploring for unique Christmas gifts.

The annual holiday arts and crafts blowout will be held at five venues. The biggest of the shows is sponsored by the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri. Between 10,000 and 12,000 people are expected to swarm over the Show Me Center and the Osage Community Centre Saturday and Sunday. Rebecca Fulgham, executive director of the council, has some concern that the Lewis and Clark festivities and craft sales could hurt each other's attendance but says, "It could go either way."

Weather is always a factor in the attendance at the arts and crafts shows and will be for the Lewis and Clark festivities, Fulgham said. "Bad weather will help us, good weather will help them. I'm hoping both events will boost the other."

Fulgham said rental of booth space is down a bit this year, but the Osage Community Centre is sold out and all the booths have been sold on the floor at the Show Me Center. Typically the upper level at the Show Me Center also has booths.

"I don't think booth sales have anything to do with Lewis and Clark," Fulgham said. "The number's down at a lot of fairs."

In addition to the arts council show, the Christmas Crafts, Gifts and Collectibles Show will be held once again at the Bavarian Halle in Jackson. It is sponsored by the River City CB Club.

The third show, the River City Craft Club Fair, will be held both at the Holiday Inn Convention Center and the A.C. Brase Arena Building.

Pat Zieche-Davisson and Sam Davisson have been selling their creations at the arts council show for nearly 10 years. They met at an arts and crafts show. She made jewelry, he was a glass blower. "Sparks fly, all that good stuff," she said in an interview from their home in Sedalia, Mo. "We're doing what we both love."

They are full-time artists, traveling to 35 to 40 fine art shows a year all across the country.

They work in two different mediums that work well together. She has wrapped some of his broken ornaments in jewelry. She does "nothing that is normal," Ziech-Davisson says. "QVS I'm not. The more unusual things are, the better I like it."

Her works sell for $6 to $600.

Zieche-Davisson said she has been interested in rocks since her family camping trips as a little girl. "Instead of playing in the woods ... I'm down on the lake picking up rocks."

She learned to make jewelry by taking a class at William Holland Lapidary School in Young Harris, Ga. The school invited her back to teach a class two years later.

Her studio is in their house. Davisson's studio, which houses a 2,500-degree glass furnace and a kiln, is in the garage.

When the furnace is running in the summer, the temperature in his garage reaches 115 degrees. "I like the winter," he says.

He made stained glass windows for many years before becoming a glass blower, drawn by "the fluidity of the medium. Glass is the translation of light and color," he says. "I really like that."

He also likes the fact that he can make a paperweight or perfume bottle one day and sell it the next. "In painting and pottery you are two weeks at least from seeing it done." His pieces sell for $12 to $250.

Both are members of Best of Missouri Hands, an arts organization that juries its membership.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182

Want to go?

Christmas Arts & Craft Extravaganza

When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday

Where: Show Me Center and Osage Community Centre, Cape Girardeau

Christmas Extravaganza

When: 5 to 9 p.m. today, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday

Where: Bavarian Halle, Jackson

River Valley Craft Club Christmas Expo

When: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday

Where: Holiday Inn Convention Center and A.C. Brase Arena Building, Cape Girardeau