Amigurumi, wasps, trains and more: Kids get the spotlight in kick off to Arts Fest

Hundreds of kids from across Centre County came together Wednesday at the annual Children and Youth Day to kick off the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, many of them displaying their wares and selling their crafts.

Neve Johnson, 14, from State College sat with a friend behind a display of crocheted animals — also known as amigurumi. It was her first year participating in Children’s Day, she explained — her parents never came to Arts Fest.

“The whale is probably my favorite,” she said. “I sold a pig earlier this morning, and that made me really happy.”

Johnson wasn’t the only person selling amigurumi — a Japanese art of crocheting animals — it seemed to be everywhere at this year’s Children’s Day. The patterns are intricate and time consuming, making the number of kids selling them all the more impressive.

State College Area High School student Emily Chen, 15, displayed amigurumi, crocheted clothes and bags in her booth for her third time selling crafts at Arts Fest. In the past, she said she sold Rainbow Loom crafts and wire jewelry.

Not all of the pieces came easily, she said — and not all of them make it to the Allen Street table.

“I do some practice with the ugly ones — then I scrap them and reuse the yarn for good ones,” she said. “That way, it’s sort of more sustainable.”

Down the street a bit further, surrounded by paintings of wasps, Cydnie Jackson, 12, said she likes to read about the insects. It was also her first time participating in Children’s Day, but you might not know it from the volume of paintings she had lined up. Each painting has the name of the wasp species written on it — and Cydnie knows a lot about wasps. She described several different species, their size, and their temperament. When she sees wasps in the wild, Jackson said she likes to photograph them. Sometimes, she’ll approach them but it depends on the type of wasp, she said.

“Fig wasps are safe!” she explained.

Her favorite part of the event? “I like sharing my art!” she said.

Giulia Hope Korzick echoed that sentiment when she talked about her tent, dubbed “Mad Chad’s Emporium.” Mad Chad, she said, is the name of a clay monster she made at an art camp.

She sold little clay monsters — the axolotl-like ones are her favorite, she said, as well as stickers and prints of creatures she sketched digitally.

“The ideas come from my imagination,” she said.

Just past Giulia, sitting behind a model train, Benny Housely, 17, was participating in his seventh Children’s Day.

“I got into trains when I was 2 when I saw a real train,” he said. He sold pen drawings of trains, as well as painted railroad spikes that he found on train tracks and then repurposed as garden stakes.

While kids took the spotlight Wednesday, plenty of adults were also downtown for their first peek at this year’s Arts Fest. State College resident Scott Anthony biked to the festival, which he said made it easier to attend than driving and trying to find a place to park.

“I think Ezra Nanes, the State College mayor, has done a great job encouraging people to to bike,” he said.

Jackie Berks, from Bigler, said that it was her first Arts Fest in a long time. She sat on a bench and watched her grandchildren cool down by running under the buckets.

“It looks good,” she said. “People seem happy.”

Arts Fest continues Thursday-Sunday in downtown State College. The Sidewalk Sale and Exhibition starts at 10 a.m. Thursday.