This winter, the Southeast Alaska State Fair in Haines is hosting monthly workshops and gatherings to encourage creative pursuits such as crafting and art. This program is called the Crafters Hall, and is meant to encourage original arts, crafts, and traditional ways of making things, with the final end goal of increasing entries in the Fair’s Exhibits Program in the summer.
The adults will have a different focus each month, with some months being classes on painting, baking, mask making, or crochet. For the kids, the Fair is hosting monthly Lego Days.
Once a month, kids ages 5 to 10 gather at Harriett Hall for unstructured fun with Legos for an hour or so. Fair Exhibits Coordinator Emma Brouillette says she wants to encourage kids to take part in the Exhibits program:
“Lego day was an opportunity for kids to be able to get into exhibits in the most kid friendly way I could think of Legos are a very very easy way to jump into that and it gets kids thinking about our crafts and pioneer department. So far, it has flown away, become my beautiful creation, and it makes me very very happy to see how excited people are.” 0:23
Brouillette says Lego Days will continue monthly through at least December. The Crafters’ Hall workshops will continue monthly through the winter.