Holiday Arts and Crafts Fair scheduled for Nov. 3-4

 The annual Holiday Arts and Crafts Show is scheduled for Nov. 3-4 at the Vendome Events Center, located at 309 State St. in Weiser.

 Doors will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 3 and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 4.

 Sponsored for years by the Four County Art Guild and Friends of the Library, the event typically draws dozens of artists and craftsmen and women from around the Treasure Valley. It has been sold out to vendors since September, and the Vendome will be packed with a total of 48 signed up to participate this year.

 “It’s everything from your typical crocheted items to really beautiful pottery and homemade artistry, handmade jewelry, and stuff like that,” said Timbra Long, librarian at the Weiser Public Library.

 She said the event is a chance for artists to display their skills and for the community to find that unique gift they may have been looking for ahead of Christmas.

 “It’s an opportunity to take a look at the talents and creativity of the many vendors that show up,” she said. “We have people from all over, from Boise and Middleton to Emmett and Hells Canyon. They literally come from all over.”

Nola Woods – Pottery

 Local vendor Nola Woods will be on hand to showcase her fine pottery, which she creates from within her shop located off Weiser River Road east of town. 

 Nola said she never gave pottery a second thought, spending time recreating when not assisting husband Robert in the operation of their business, Appleton Produce Company, which is primarily known for procuring, packaging, and selling onions, among other crops.

 “It all started in 1991. I was spending a lot of my time skiing, but then I had an accident and hurt my knee,” explained Nola, who graduated from Weiser High School in 1961. “The doctor said I probably would never ski again, so my friend Linda said, ‘Why don’t you come take pottery with me?’ and that’s how it happened.”

 Weiser resident Linda Drake had been taking pottery classes at Treasure Valley Community College when she invited Nola to accompany her.

 “She had taken a couple of semesters, taught me, and got me started,” Nola said. “Then I started taking classes at TVCC.”

 Nola and Linda have been participating in the Holiday Arts and Crafts Fair now for years and share a booth at the event.

 But the new-found hobby did not stop with Nola. Years later, husband Robert got involved.

 “I wanted to go to a workshop in Kansas City and Robert wanted to go with me,” she explained. “He had always helped me and was really interested in the firing part. He told me to ask my instructor if he could come and sit in on the firing portion of it, so I did. My instructor said ‘no,’ to teach him how to center the clay and then have him come take the workshop, so he got really hooked on it; that’s when he got really enthused.”

 Robert, who always intended to take up woodworking after retirement, said the trip to Kansas City had a profound effect on him.

 “It really did me in, I guess,” he told the Signal American from the couple’s shop behind their home. “It’s really fun. It’s a fun hobby, something we can do together. We hang out down here and exchange ideas on some things, argue about others, but it’s therapeutic: you sit down and take a chunk of clay, put it on the wheel and, as we always say, you just kind of let it talk to you; ‘what do you want to be?’ And then you just start.”

 Nola said she appreciates the ability to bring something into existence using her imagination and acquired skills.

 “I like to create things; to me, it’s just relaxing,” she said. “You get really dirty and messy, but it’s just fun to feel the clay in your hands and be able to move it and have it do what you want it to do; and then, I like using it. I like the end result.”

 The couple’s pottery shop seems quite extensive for a simple hobby, with separate rooms where they house their pottery wheels, drying areas, display rooms, and space for various other types of pottery accoutrements, including rooms that house two smaller electric kilns and a larger gas kiln that fires up to about 2,500 degrees, which many say produces visual effects simply not obtainable using an electric kiln. (visit www.ceramicartsnetwork.org to find out more about gas kilns.)

 What is now a bastion for ceramic creativity was once the Wood’s horse barn, which explains the many rooms. Robert also built his own metal spray box from scratch where distinct types of glazes are applied before they are put into the kilns.

 The Woods produce a seemingly large assortment of pottery of varying size, shape, color, and utility. They like to sell their creations at events such as Weiser’s Holiday Arts and Crafts Fair, but also enjoy giving them to their children, 24 grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren.

 “Linda and I have been doing the sale together for years and years,” Nola noted. “We just have a couple of tables and we have a notebook and just divide the page in half, putting her stickers on one side, and mine on another. It’s fun and we always look forward to it.”