Oct./Nov. 1983 RAIN Page 53 Not Just a Country Fair by Camille Cole The Oregon Country Fair marked its 14th year in 1983. The first Fair, in 1969, was initiated for the benefit of a children's alternative school. For the craftspeople and vendors, the first step was an experiment in the search for making a living on one's own terms—the quest to integrate their work with their personal identity and family life. And for the early patrons, the benefit was exposure to an assembly of images of a better way of life. The magic was contagious, and a sense of community was bom. The Oregon Country Fair has come to be more than a crafts fair, more than the annual counterculture gathering. It is a community, a showcase, the reaffirmation of a lifestyle, the circle around the fire, and a dream that has become a tradition for those who have participated over the years. The site of the Fair is a patch of country meadow. It is transformed each July into a world of fantasy and creative expression— a place where, even with the world in its present state of unrest, people of all ages and conditions can gather for three days to celebrate their art and the art of living cooperatively. It is also a place where hope, where belief in change, and where the desire for a different future are the common bonds. The theme (and the lifeblood) is a cooperative spirit, and the event itself is an extraordinary celebration of shared values and common cause. The creation of this event depends on long hours of planning (seven to eight months in advance) and labors of love by the many dedicated organizers and workers—all pulling for the public good. The organization is based on collective management and democratic decision making. The collective planning effort includes provision for traffic control, security, medical aid. information, water, registration, communication, garbage, crafts- booths, food vendors, and educational displays. And, as the ever-dependable July sun rises on the first day of the weekend celebration, we find ourselves among the crowds of familiar people, and everything is charged with beauty. Imagine a mandala landscape, shrouded with rainbows and open, smiling faces—a crystal vision of peace and harmony. Security is tight, traffic is flowing, wooden barrels are filled with water, youngsters and oldsters are having their faces painted. Strolling along the crowded path, shuffling their feet in the loose straw, passers- through experience every sort of fanciful pleasure and are covered with a fine layer of dust. Ambrosia, fandango, and melody sustain the senses. Brilliance and gaudery excite even the skeptics. At the heart of the assemblage, in Community Village, you discover demonstrations of energy conservation techniques and appropriate technologies. There's an integral house equipped with a composting toilet; beekeepers, networkers, natural healers, organic gardeners, midwives, and New Games. In a remote corner of the Fair, a distance from the central fires, the scent of gourmet French dinners and steam from a public sauna fill the air. Old friends meet with a joie-de-vivre amidst jugglers and the finest handcrafted wares in all the land. When delivered to the Main Stage, the melodies and movement pull you in, and the energy spreads like a bonfire in the wind. Finally, Sunday afternoon is spent, sunlight fades, and as we wind our way back to the beginning of the great figure eight, campfires begin to crackle, and we bid farewell until next year. Seasoned friends have strengthened bonds, and as the ranks drift back to the world, they carry with them the affirmations of hope that will help them along the way. Glancing back over the last 14 years, we see that the time of innocence has been both lost and preserved. Many staff members and other participants are the same people as before. Each year they are older, have new children, children are older, and most of us look a bit weathered. Today, the Fair is better organized and more concerned with making money and cutting expenses—a reflection of the over-all community. And with the purchase of the Fair site (242 acres) in 1982 (through the support of 1800 craftspeople and 750 staff), the Fair is assured a permanent presence in our lives. Portions of this text have been taken from a hook in progress by the author, Camille Cole. Fundraising efforts are being made to cover the printing and binding of Country Fair. Those interested in assisting in this effort can reach her at 5031484-7181. Portland’s Neighborhood Renewal an interview with Mary Catherine, former director of Portland's Office of Neighborhood Associations Neighbors working together to create or sustain livability in their community is hardly new. One can trace such organizing back through the decades. The neighborhood groups that formed in the 1950s in this country were mostly set up as business booster organizations. But those groups have few similarities to the neighborhood groups established in the late sixties and the seventies. Perhaps this country has never seen, and may never see again, such a grassroots movement. Again, as has happened so often before, the spawning of this movement was the result ofactions, called generically “urban renewal," that one would hardly expect to result in a new way of looking at governance. But the neighborhood movement has done Cont.-
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz