LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The 118th Kentucky State Fair at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville will be Aug. 18-28 and is projected to be one of the largest the Bluegrass State has ever experienced.  

More than 600,000 fairgoers are expected to fill the 520 acres of indoor and outdoor exhibits, headlined by the Kentucky State Fair World’s Championship Horse Show. More than 2,000 elite saddlebreds from various continents appear at this event.

All 120 counties will be represented to enjoy 11 days of concerts, agriculture, animals and education. There are exhibits galore and include such things as health screenings, gravity-defying acrobats, magical illusionists, balloon sculptors and home improvement demonstrations.

Activities will include a multitude of food, games and rides, in addition to the agricultural competitions involving dairy goats, dairy cattle, mules, sheep, swine, beef cattle, poultry, rabbits and pigeons. At last year’s fair, livestock competitors filled the West Wing, Hall and Pavillion with 7,389 entries. FFA and 4-H participants contributed 6,828 entries, which were displayed in the South Wing.

According to Ian Cox, executive director of communications with Kentucky Venues, a steady growing part of the fair has been in the area of arts and crafts. Last year saw entries in crafts such as sculpture, folk art, glass working, calligraphy, poetry, photography, pottery, leather craft, woodworking, basket making, woodcarving, flower arranging, needlework, sewing and others. A total of $10,800 in premiums were awarded to entrants at last year’s fair.

Walk through any of the fine arts buildings at this year’s fair and you’ll quickly discover that the Bluegrass State has an abundance of talented exhibitors. Each year in the fine arts and crafts department, thousands of ribbons are awarded in 31 divisions to large groups of talented artisans.

One of those talents is Jane Adolf, who prides herself in her display of intricately designed gourds. Adolf lives in Waddy, Ky., and has given herself (and her website) the nickname “Sweet Waddy Jane,” (www.sweetwaddyjane.com) derived from the 1970 James Taylor hit song “Sweet Baby James.”

Adolf received her first blue ribbon at the Shelby County homemaker’s showcase. From there, her pieces advanced to state competition where she also won numerous blue ribbons. She captured Best of Show in the gourd category at the 2021 Kentucky State Fair.

Upon arriving in Kentucky from Albuquerque, N.M., Adolf wasn’t thinking about winning about blue ribbons at the state fair. Her goal was just to grow gourd plants on her 16-acre hobby farm in Shelby County. Today she has 50 such plants.

“After living in the desert for our working lives, the green grass and open spaces of central Kentucky became our home,” Adolf said. “We moved to Kentucky from Albuquerque 11 years ago. One of the first things I grew when I arrived was gourds. They’re fun to grow but they’re not easy to grow in this state due to the humidity. I get different shapes each year.”

Adolf’s growing season starts each May when she plants her seeds indoors, then transplants them outdoors when the soil warms. She harvests gourds at the first frost, then dries and cures the gourds outdoors until spring. The mold and fungus that grows on them can be toxic, so Jane she outdoors when cleaning the gourds. A labor of love, she calls it.

Gourd artists paint, draw, carve, burn, dye and weave on their gourds. The variety of shapes and sizes of the gourds creates endless possibilities for these artists. Adolf is a self-proclaimed doodler, and that’s just the adornment her gourds receive.

“When I was in college I would doodle on my note pad during the lectures,” she said. “I had all these egg gourds so I decided to doodle on them.”

Her doodling led her to learn about Zentangle, a meditative drawing which is structured from shapes with recurring patterns from a combination of points, lines, simple curves and circles. Normally, the drawings are made on a special type of paper (3.5” x 3.5”) using a black fine-liner and a soft pencil. Adolf selected gourds as her ‘canvas’. She eventually took a Zentangle class from a local artist.

“I started drawing on gourds six years ago,” she said. “I do this while watching TV. It’s very relaxing.”

Not long after the gourds were harvested and dried, Adolf started inking on the smaller gourds. She began experimenting, refining her inking style, testing out dyes and learning to use hand tools for carving her gourds. With precision, Adolf has covered many of her gourds with her detailed drawings.

“I’ve had to learn how to use a jig saw, drill bits and Dremels,” she said. “They’re fun to work with. I enter my gourds at the state fair so there’s something for people to look at.”

Cora Flispart has competed in the Kentucky State Fair for 25 years. Not only does Flispart compete in Kentucky, but she uses her expertise to judge at county fairs in her home state of Indiana. Cora knows her way around a sewing needle.

“When judging county fairs, I look at the workmanship of the article, from cutting thread tails in sewing to weaving the thread ends in knitting and crocheting,” she said. “When I go back to pick the winners, I look at the difficulty of making the article. If everything is equal, I choose the one I like the best, be it the color of the item or the extras place on the item.”

While making doll clothes is her specialty, she excels in knitting, crocheting, weaving, jewelry craft, resin craft, painting, flower arranging, quilting, machine embroidery, hand embroidery, leather work and basketry.

An award-winning crafter, Flispart has been racking up ribbons at the Kentucky State Fair for many years. She won her first blue ribbon with a decorated Christmas tree skirt and fittingly her first Best in Show was in the doll clothing competition. An exhibitor can only Best in Show once every four years. Cora has won three times.

Flispart says competing at the state fair gives her a place to showcase her creations.

Sarah Cawthon went from a complete needle felt beginner to winning the Best of Show at the 2021 Kentucky State Fair. She’s also a proven winner in quilting, while also experimenting in painting and drawing. After watching fine arts on YouTube, she learned the art of taking a ball of wool and turning it into an animal by tangling the fiber with a barbed needle. Her craft is called needle felting, which is the art of sculpting wool and fiber using a barbed needle.

“Sculpting in 3D was not a skill I had developed though I’ve enjoyed drawing and painting in the past,” she said. “It’s very satisfying to hold your creation as it comes to life.”

Cawthon is currently working on several projects she hopes to showcase at this year’s Kentucky State Fair.

Yet another talented artisan who will display her crafts will be Terryl Allen. From quilting to cross-stitch, Allen has earned many blue ribbons at past Kentucky State Fairs. She says her hobby is a way of “de-stressing.”

“I knit, crochet, sew clothing and quilt,” Allen said. “I also make doll clothes and do counted cross-stitch, embroidery, needlepoint and have done some smocking. I always say, give me a needle and thread and I can probably do something with it.”

Allen is president of Kentucky Cover Lovers Quilt Guild that meets in Shelbyville, and she’s president of the Louisville Chapter of the Embroiderers’ Guild of America.

“My mother taught me to sew and crochet when I was 9 years old,” Allen said. “Mom kept up with the trends in the 70s and 80s, so she was always the impetus for all my crafting. Mom never had any interest in learning knitting, so I taught myself from the books that were available in the 80s. A far cry from today’s YouTube lessons.”

Allen won honorable mention at the Kentucky State Fair in 2013 with her zoo quilt. “It was the first time I won any kind of award, and I was thrilled,” Allen said. “Since then, I’ve won some first and second place ribbons at the fair for doll clothes, a third and fourth place ribbon on some clothing.”

Allen says anyone interested in needlework or sewing should seek people who can help and inspire you, whether it is online or through local shops, guilds and getting together with friends and creating a project together.