Long Island Fair 2012 - Photos

We hope you will enjoy photos of locally made goods and snapshots of our guest artists and visitors, as well as the grounds, buildings, and activities at the Old Bethpage Village Restoration - the site of the Long Island Fair.

Our thanks go to organizers of the event, craftspeople who submitted work to Think Green category, and to our guests on Saturday and Sunday - knitters Joyce Colucci and Gail Ryan, wood carver Don Dailey, jeweler - bead maker Gea Hines, and painter James Johansen.

Photos from Sunday


Photos from Saturday


Photos from Thursday, the judging day

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Think Green Award returns to Long Island Fair for the second year

We are pleased to announce that Think Long Island First will again present the Think Green Award at the Long Island Fair at Old Bethpage Village Restoration, September 27th - 30th, 2012.

The Long Island Fair, organized by The Agricultural Society of Queens, Nassau & Suffolk Counties, one of the oldest agricultural societies in the United States, has been taking place almost every fall for the last 170 years. For the past 40 years it was staged on the grounds and at the Exhibition Hall of the Old Bethpage Village Restoration. It is the only State sanctioned County Fair in this area, well worth attending and entering.

The 2012 Premium Book containing all important information and submission forms is released on the The Long Island Fair website. You can also pick up printed copies of the Premium Book at the store.

Think Green Award is granted to a contestant whose creative, well executed entry best reflects the principles of sustainability - the entry is made either from reused materials or from local materials obtained with minimum environmental impact.

Our judging criteria are as follows:

• Sustainability (40 points) - percentage of local or reused materials
• Creativity (20 points) - interesting use of materials, new/recycled
• Execution (20 points) - craftsmanship applied in creation of entry
• Functionality (20 points) - fully functional as either utilitarian or decorative object

The Award is given in three age groups:

• Adult (18 and older)
• Young Adult (14-17)
• Junior (13 and younger)

Last year's Award went to Anthony Farrah for the Console Table made from reused woods.

We warmly encourage you to submit your entries to the show in all categories and we hope to see your work in the Think Green section.

Best of luck!

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Anthony Farah, woodworker craftsman

Maple Top Console Table
by Anthony Farah

Anthony Farah, Wantagh woodworker craftsman, got his first taste of hands-on work at 15 when he picked up a summer job at a frame shop. He enjoyed both the precision and the tactile aspect of fitting frames, cutting mat boards, glass and adding finishing components. He stayed there for 3 years.

Bubinga Console Table
by Anthony Farah

Having imagined himself a cattle rancher in Montanta, he studied animal husbandry at The State University of New York College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill. His first venture into wood art happened in a woodshed at the college grounds - Tony made a jewelry box for a prospective girlfriend. Neither the cattle ranch nor the girlfriend came true.

Tony joined his cousin Charles at his carpentry business in Philadelphia. He had used his time there well - learned flooring, window making, trims, visited various museums and galleries in search of clever use of wood.

Little Round Table
by Anthony Farah

Throughout the years he had a number of other experiences from barn building to employment at a mirror shop at the time when mirror walls and ceilings were all the rage. A memorable and eye-opening experience was an on and off involvement with Filmways Studios in the Bronx where he built movie sets.

He started his own shop with just a handful of machines in his backyard, then moved through a succession of workshops of ever increasing footage and capacities. He is now comfortably set up in Uniondale, where he runs a woodworking shop Big Twig Woodworks. He makes custom cabinets in a variety of styles, creates sumptuous bars and paneled libraries, is well known for his railing work.

Glass Top Table
by Anthony Farah

In addition, Tony creates one of a kind furniture where he utilizes reclaimed and recovered wood. If he hears of or sees a fallen/felled tree of potential he will make sure it ends up stashed in his shop getting ready for a table/bookshelf/etc yet to be conceived.

Recently, Tony's interest and perseverance got an official recognition; he was a recipient of the Think Green Award given by Think Long Island First at The Long Island Fair, an annual event held on the grounds of the Old Bethpage Village Restoration. A console table of local maple and red oak was the winning piece.



Though Tony is a self-taught woodworker, he has gained his esthetic training and inspiration from the study of works by George Nakashima, Wendell Castle, Frank Pollaro, or Wharton Esherick whose staircase in Esherick's house/museum he considers one of the finest achievements of woodworking. Tony is a member of the Long Island Woodworkers Guild.

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Think Long Island First will present Think Green Award at The Long Island Fair

The Long Island Fair, organized by The Agricultural Society of Queens, Nassau & Suffolk Counties, one of the oldest agricultural societies in the United States, has been taking place almost every fall. This year it is scheduled for September 22 - 25, 10 am to 4 pm Thursday and Friday, 10 am to 5 pm Saturday and Sunday.

We are pleased to announce that we will be giving the Think Green Award. It is the first time in the history of the esteemed organization that this type of prize it awarded. We are truly honored to be chosen to present it.

'Think Green Award' award is granted to a creative, well executed entry that best reflects the principles of sustainability - the entry is made either from reused materials or from local materials obtained with minimum environmental impact.

Our judging criteria are as follows:
Sustainability (40 points) - percentage of local or reused materials
Creativity (20 points) - interesting use of materials, new/recycled
Execution (20 points) - craftsmanship applied in creation of entry
Functionality (20 points) - fully functional as either utilitarian or decorative object

We invite you to participate in the Think Green competition and encourage you to submit your entries to the show in other categories. Best of luck!

For further details please see The Long Island Fair website.

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Eric Marten, fiddler

Eric Marten, violinist, music teacher and historian, delighted the visitors of a school house (c. 1845, from Manhasset) at the Old Bethpage Village Restoration with traditional tunes on this swelteringly hot Independence Day.

Eric played one of four 19th century violins in the possession of the Village. This violin/fiddle differed from a modern day instrument in a number of ways - sheep gut strings produced milder, richer, less metallic sound, the violin had no chin rest and no fine tuners. It was tuned differently from the standard GDAE and its pitch was lower than modern A-440. 

The simple tunes were charming, warm, and catching. It was not difficult to imagine dancers moving gently to the rhythm. If not for the fact that we wanted to preserve the gravitas of the place, were eager to hear more music and more information (and were very hot), we would have danced ourselves, right there, in the small, one room school house.

Eric Marten is the music historian at the museum. He has extensive knowledge of period tunes and instruments. Over the years he has been involved in the works of The Long Island Traditional Music Association (LITMA), where he currently conducts Young Musicians Fiddle Instruction Series workshops, The Barnburners, The Long Island Fiddlemonic Orchestra, The "No Frills" Contradance Orchestra, and various school fiddle clubs on Long Island.

If you need information about traditional tunes, period instruments at the Village, or just want to play music, contact Eric at 1.516.359.3801.



In the following video, Eric plays the fiddle while his wife plays limberjack, a wooden instrument.





More fiddle music performed by Eric can be found on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZLLzOipqdY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIdPnUqGxu0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-_M_k5kx5s

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Nassau County's Photo Archive Center at Old Bethpage Village Restoration

Photo by Ewa Rumprecht

If you have attended the same church every Sunday for the last 20 years, you may have wondered, how did your church look 100 years ago; who would be your neighbor on the bench, whose more or less ample bottoms polished the pew on which you are sitting now, whose kids carved their initials in the soft wood, how were the members of the congregation dressed, what hats were they wearing, did they look prosperous? Answers to these and to many other questions are waiting quietly at the photo archives administered by the Nassau County's Photo Archive Center at the Old Bethpage Village Restoration.

There are researchers, family members delving into their family tree, book authors, historians, organizations celebrating anniversaries of their activies, whose inquiries constitute the bulk of requests for the many images in the archive.

Of the 250,000 images in the archive, 14,000 are catalogued in an electronic format for an easy retrieval. George William Fisher oversees the project from his office/lab at the Restoration. He is a walking font of information on the Long Island photographers, photo techniques, history and industry of Long Island (he is an avid collector of Long Island soda, beer, mineral water, and medicine bottles). He is perfectly suited for his job or rather passion also for another reason, he has years of experience digitizing and archiving data, from human resource files to county records.

One of the current projects at the center is cataloguing the collection of about 4,000 images by Mattie Edwards Hewitt, a landscape and architectural photographer, from Richard Averill Smith's bequest to Nassau County. Hewitt was a very talented photographer who captured numerous architectural treasures of Long Island. Since she published extensively during her lifetime, her photos of Long Island mansions and grounds brought many landscaping ideas to middle class and thus shaped many a neighborhood on the island.

Archives include works by other major Long Island photographers noted for their historical or artistic merit: Henry Otto Korten, John Drennan,William Pickering, Rachel and Lydia Hicks, George Dradford Brainard, and the already mentioned Richard Averill Smith.

Photo Archive Center is located at the Old Bethpage Village Restoration, 1303 Round Swamp Road, Old Bethpage, NY 11804. Tours and visits, by appointment only, can be arranged by calling 516.572.8410.

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