To celebrate the North Quabbin Garlic & Arts Festival’s 20th anniversary, organizers are presenting festival-goers with a gift that could change the regional landscape.
The gift? Packets of pollinator seeds.
The seeds will allow those who visit the festival on Sept. 29 and 30 to support and participate in the ecological process of pollination, explained Deb Habib, who co-founded the festival and still participates on its planning committee. But the seeds represent something greater, too — they are symbolic of “pollinating the important values” that the festival has embodied since its beginning in 1999: community, collaboration, creativity and environmental sustainability.
“The values have not changed,” Habib said. “I think a lot of the times, people organizing events don’t stop to think about what the values are and to return to those values. We as a committee return to those values often.”
The first Garlic & Arts Festival was held in 1999 by five neighbors in Orange. The idea arose from a conversation between Habib’s husband, Ricky Baruc, and friend Jim Fountain. Baruc mentioned there were not many places to sell the garlic he grew on his farm and Fountain, a woodworker, said the same problem existed for his artwork.
The group of neighbors decided to give local garlic farmers a venue to show and sell their products without having to leave the region, as well as a platform for artists. At the time, the “buy local” movement was just beginning, Habib said.
Each person contributed $20, and the festival was held at Habib and Baruc’s Seeds of Solidarity Farm. It drew about 700 people.
The next year, Garlic & Arts moved to the larger Forster’s Farm at 60 Chestnut Hill Road, where it has been held ever since. Habib said it now draws about 10,000 people, both from western Massachusetts and beyond, over the course of a weekend, with the festival grounds behind open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day.
The festival organizers don’t plan on expanding further, she added.
“We want it to feel abundant,” she said. “We want all the people who are drawn to come to come because there’s so much to learn here and to gain from it. We want the exhibitors to have a good experience, too.”
“From the start, the intention of the event was a celebration of the artistic, agricultural and cultural bounty of the region,” Habib said. “Sometimes we’ll get an inquiry from someone who designs things to have made in, like, Raleigh. That’s not what the festival is. The festival is about people growing or making things with their hands, whether it’s food, art or agriculture.”
While garlic is an important aspect of the festival, Habib said there’s something for everyone to enjoy, even those who don’t like garlic.
“You can go to the spoken word stage and listen to poetry all weekend,” she said. “Or you can go to the ‘Portal to the Future’ area and experience the incredible renewable energy and local-living workshops all weekend. Or you can spend time talking to all of the artists at their booths, learning from their creativity.”
As in past years, there is a program of local musicians, dancers, poets and storytellers.
New this year is a “slow cloth” demonstration tent. Visitors at the tent will see how plant and animal fibers are prepared to be spun into threads, then woven into cloth or twisted into rope.
At 3 p.m. on Sunday, there will be a parade to celebrate the festival’s 20 years, followed by a circle of gratitude and a giant birthday cake.
Keeping with the garlic portion of the festival’s theme, 19 restaurants from North Quabbin have booths and will serve garlic-oriented food. There is also a schedule of cooking demonstrations that all involve garlic, as well as garlic-planting workshops.
The festival itself is a model of community organizing. It is overseen by a committee of 20 volunteers, and about 150 more volunteers staff the festival itself, Habib said.
Environmental sustainability is emphasized, too. Special attention is paid to ensuring visitors know how to dispose of different materials. Even with 10,000 people passing through over the course of the weekend, the festival leaves only three bags of trash. In comparison, the festival produces about 130 bags of compostable materials and about 25 bags of recyclables.
“It takes effort, but it feels really important,” Habib said. “That’s part of what people learn while they’re here. If we can do this on a large scale … then certainly people can do it on smaller scales in their own lives.”
Food vendors don’t sell bottled water, Habib said. Instead, there are free water stations around the festival grounds, and visitors are encouraged to use reusable bottles.
Last year, Garlic & Arts introduced a “urine diversion” project, which is back this year. Festival organizers partnered with the Rich Earth Institute of Brattleboro, Vt. to collect urine from the festival’s toilets. It is later pasteurized and used as fertilizer for nonfood crops. Toilet docents will be on hand to explain the process.
All the physical infrastructure of the festival — the stages, tables, tents, etc. — are built by organizers using local products. The main stage, which hosts local bands and dance troupes, is completely powered by a solar panel setup from Pioneer Valley Photovoltaic.
Given festival organizers’ efforts to make the event more sustainable and the wide variety of attractions, Habib said the event shouldn’t be misconstrued as being all about garlic.
“Frankly, I get kind of bummed when reporters say, ‘And there was garlic ice cream,’ and that’s like the only thing they have to say,” she said. “There is garlic ice cream, but that’s not what it’s about.”
“Garlic & Arts becomes a unique combination, and a way to bring people to an event that’s much more than that, that’s incredibly educational and like nothing they’ve ever experienced,” Habib said.
Admission is $5 for a day pass or $8 for the whole weekend. Children ages 12 and under are admitted for free. Visitors are encouraged to check garlicandarts.org for information on parking and shuttling services.
Staff reporter Max Marcus started working at the Greenfield Recorder this year. He covers Northfield, Bernardston, Leyden and Warwick. He can be reached at: mmarcus@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 261.