The Woodward News

Local News

April 6, 2008

Unique crafts part of Expo

The K-101 Farm Expo offers a great opportunity for a wide variety of craftsmen to display their wares, from one-of-a-kind jewelry to one-of-a-kind wooden bowls.

“I don’t ever make the same thing twice,” said jeweler Michelle McClung.

Whether it is earrings or necklaces, McClung said she enjoys the challenge of making each piece unique.

In fact, she said her favorite pieces are those that allow her to be even more creative as she makes use of different elements, such as copper wire, instead of just beads.

Creativity has always been a passion for McClung, who went to college to study painting but fell in love with silversmithing instead.

Despite only being in the jewelry-making business for three years, McClung has already opened her own shop. Last July she opened Michelle’s Chic Boutique in Laverne, which she operates primarily by herself in addition to hand crafting all the jewelry she sells in the store.

But while handmade crafts are a career for several exhibitors at the Expo, for others like Robert Williams, of Kaw City, it is a hobby.

“I’m not in it for business,” Williams said.

Nevertheless, he still puts a great deal of creativity and care into the wooden creations he crafts.

And just like McClung’s jewelry, Williams noted that each one of his wooden pieces is unique.

“I don’t make any two just alike,” he said.

After working as a machinist for 40 years, Williams decided to exchange his metalworking lathe for a woodworking lathe.

For the past five years, he has been carving out bowls, vases, decorative bird houses, candleholders and anything else he can think of.

Everything he makes comes from pieces of dead wood that he picks up along a creek near his home or from trees that his grandson clears out from other people’s property.

A lot of times the wood that he picks up from the creek may not look like much, he said, but once he begins working with it beautiful patterns emerge.

“I just like getting a piece of wood and making something,” Williams said. “A lot of times I have no idea what I’m going to make until it starts taking shape.”

“You got to make what the wood tells you to,” he said. “The wood will talk to you.”

In addition to a variety of unique craft items, the Expo also offers many other interesting exhibits from those that feature homemade treats like fudge to those that extol the benefits of various gizmos such as the Mini Masseuse.

And outdoors there is also an assortment of farm equipment on display as well as fun and games for the young and the young at heart.

The Expo continues today from noon until 6 p.m. at the Woodward County Fairgrounds.

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