PapaBear Bowls

PapaBear, of PapaBear Bowls, made his debut at the 11th Annual Spoonbread Festival held this weekend in Berea, Kentucky. The festival started on Friday September 14th and will continue through tomorrow September 16th. Pictured below is PapaBear as he was getting ready for the festivities to begin. What began as a hobby around August or September of 2006 is now flowering and may soon become a money making profession. It will be tested this weekend for the very first time.
Aren't his bowls pretty? But of course you all know that I'm prejudice and if I could, I'd own all of his bowls myself. I do already have quite a collection of his bowls and carvings and, I think I'm just about tied with MamaBear, who happends to be his wife. We're all just so proud of Brian.
Here's a familiar face...Sharon, aka Somershade who stopped by to keep her brother company for a while. We all miss reading her blog and I wish I could encourage her to return to the world of blogging...that goes for MamaBear of The Four Bears in the Woods too! I should talk...I haven't been blogging much either...too much going on right now. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!
Now getting back to the festival.....PapaBear carved out some of the most unique walking sticks too. He also made me a rolling pin, but so far it's the only rolling pin he's made. I guess that's because I'm special. hehehe
When Brian isn't working on a bowl, he's whittling on a walking stick or making a special tool of some kind to aide him in turning bowls or to help him with his carvings.
Here are some more of his walking sticks leaning against the table. I didn't have enough hands to hold them up, but this way you get to see some of his bowls in the background too. I really loved that little wolf and if you click on any of the pictures you can see them better and in more detail.
The picture (above) I took today as I stopped by to visit and to see how things were going. Today the booths were open for 10 hours and I knew that it would be a long and tiring day for Brian because of his severe back & leg pain, but he was managing just fine between sitting and standing.
Standing next to Brian is his baby sister Suzanne. You can only see half of her because she runs when she sees the camera pointed at her. She was Brian's decorator...She decorated the tables for him with fall colored leaves, flowers and tiny little baskets that she picked up at the 'Everything's a dollar Store.' She's very thrifty and did a beautiful job. Suzanne & Tori had this brilliant idea of taking these tiny little baskets, turning them upside down, sticking toothpicks in them and using them to prop up some of the bowls on their edges. The toothpicks kept the bowls from slipping, and you could even poke flowers in the baskets too. Some of the bowls were also placed on top of the baskets.
This is a customer who stopped in at least three times while I was there. First he came alone...then he brought his son...and the last time I saw him he brought over a friend of his. He loved the wolf walking stick, but I don't know if he ever bought anything. A lot of people just "ooo'd & awe'd" and asked a lot of questions, took some literature and business cards, and went on their merry way. One man came back without his wife and bought her a surprise gift...a large bowl that she had been admiring. Wasn't that sweet?
Aren't these bowls pretty? I love that Brian uses wood with imperfections...it adds character and color to his bowls. These pictures don't do his bowls justice because some have bright red streaks running through them and others have worm holes. I just hope that Brian doesn't run out of firewood this winter because that's what he uses to make his bowls with, hehehe, and his woodpile is looking mighty slim.
The bowl that is standing upright, to the right of the picture with the tag on its upper edge, is from the hickory tree that blew down in our back yard. There is still a large portion of the tree trunk left in our back yard that would make more beautiful bowls.

I also think Suzanne did a beautiful job of decorating Brian's tables. I think that was very sweet of her to show up there every morning to get the tables set up for him.
The first morning everybody showed up to help Brian & Reva get the booth set up. Once the canopy and the tables were in place, they remained at the site the whole weekend. It's Saturday night tonight and there is no security at the festival site this year. Last night went without incident so I'm hoping tonight will be the same. Everyone packs away there wares, but leaves their tables and canopy's in place.
So far all has been quiet except for the first morning of the festival. Everyone was trying to get to the site to get set up, but there was a traffic jam complete with a detour right smack dab in the center of town. I managed to get turned into a side street and take an indirect route. Later we learned that one of our banks was being robbed and the scuddle butt was that there was a hostage situation going on. Police cars lined the streets and swat teams surrounded the bank. Later the news reported that the bank was being robbed by phone. I'm sure that you've heard of the numerous holdups that are taking place across the country where the robbers demand money by phone...and that the money be wired to other countries. They also try to convince the tellers that they can see them. This phone bank robber demanded that the money be wired to Portugal and the tellers failed to tell the police that the bank robber was on the phone. Sounds like something that would happen to Barney Phife. hehehe
Here are some more of Brian's walking sticks. I don't do a very good job of photographing his walking sticks...they just won't cooperate and face the camera. If you all remember the last Cucoo episode, he had a friend called the Old Man of The Yard...he was also one of Brian's walking sticks.

Suzanne was so busy getting things ready that she didn't see I had my camera out. You have to be very creative when trying to capture her in a picture. I was probably pretending to be busy myself or doing one of those tricky backward shots. hehehe.
Also, now that I have a camera phone I get away with many more sneaky pictures too.

One more day of the festival to go for PapaBear. We all wish him well and hope this turns out to be the beginning of something BIG for him and his family. Remember the name:

PapaBear Bowls
"Not just for porridge anymore"