Experience Louisiana Festival: More than 25 Louisiana Crafts Guild members to display crafts

More than 25 members of the Louisiana Crafts Guild will display their wares at the Experience Louisiana Festival, and guild president Miles Peterson is organizing the event’s Craft Village.
“We will have people selling items like jewelry, furniture, wooden items, glassworks, pottery and basket weaves,” Peterson said. “We will set up a large market and have a wide range of crafts displayed. We will have some really great items.”
The festival will be Oct. 17-18 at the LSU-Eunice campus.
Peterson has been with the guild for 14 years and has been president of the organization for the last four years. In those years, he has watched many artists hone their craft at festivals around the state, including blacksmith Sam Riehl, who will also be at the festival.
“Sam is the nicest young man,” Peterson said. “He is on the right track. I’ve known him since he was in the sixth grade. We helped with getting him a mentoring scholarship, and he used it to buy his first forge and anvil.”
The guild president is hopeful that the festival will draw in a different crowd of attendants than the Festivals Acadiens attracts.
“I think we will see people from places like Oberlin, Oakdale and Alexandria,” Peterson said. “The festival sounds like it will be fun. It’s a good opportunity for us to showcase cultural crafts, and a place to expose people to what really good crafts are.”