TAUNY At Christmastime

I drove to TAUNY in Canton, New York to see the Gingerbread House Contest (yesterday's post) but of course decided to stay and have a look around while I was there. TAUNY stands for Traditional Arts In Upstate New York and they specialize in the arts and crafts of local artisans and Native Americans:

They were having a Christmas open house and people milled around, nibbling on oranges and cookies, while looking at the displays and merchandise:

And there was plenty of merchandise to see, all neatly displayed on open shelves:

An A cappella group was singing traditional Christmas carols:

A woman fielded telephone calls over by the fiddle playing chainsaw bear and tables loaded with finger foods:

I have seen most of their merchandise many times but noticed, for the first time, these handmade lures and creel. The next shelves over held picture frames and bird houses:

Hand sewn quilts:

I walked upstairs and found a gallery of awards which they called their "Wall of Fame:"

Each frame held a North Country Heritage Award, people or groups recognized for their history of mastery of the traditional arts in the region:

I picked two of them at random to show here. The first was Yancey's Sugarbush in Croghan, New York. The Yancey family has been tapping trees and making maple syrup and candy since 1844:

Eli Tracy has been a blacksmith since he was a small boy helping his father in the blacksmith shop. Eli has been shoeing horses, making wagon wheels and bolts, and repairing broken farm equipment for nearly 70 years:

I began descending the stairs, from where I discovered the unique view which they offered of the bustling sales floor below. The A cappella chorus continued to sing Christmas carols and the whole scene was most appealing:

The register/sales desk was at the foot of the stairs and I could see out the front windows onto the wintry downtown main street of Canton. It was time for me to go back out to my car and continue on to other things: