Garden and art faire draws in the crowds in downtown Palmer

PALMER — The Palmer Museum Garden and Art Faire started off Friday night with a sold-out wine tasting event and ran into Saturday evening hosting a long list of workshops, vendors and other attractions.

The event on the green outside of the Palmer Public Library and was hosted by the Palmer Museum.

Tickets for the Palmer Wine Walk were gone within two weeks of becoming available, according to Sam Dinges, museum director.

“We do 300 tickets, and then we had eight stops at eight downtown businesses, so people got to go along and got to sample them,” he said.

Each participant to the pre-Faire attraction received a personal wine glass decorated by an artist from Artists Uncorked.

The non-profit event has been in existence for nine years, and it was originally at the fairgrounds and ran independently by various entities, but the Palmer Museum took it over four years ago, according to Brooke Heppinstall, event coordinator.

“Palmer Museum is also the visitors center, so this helps promote local artisans and we have people that come from other parts of the state, but our emphasis tends to be on Alaska-made, locally-grown, locally-made,” she said.

Another main attraction at the Garden Faire was a renaissance portrait painting tent, which allowed visitors to try their hand at drawing a live model surrounded by flowers. Easels and paints were provided by the Palmer Renaissance Painters group.

The Rhubarb Rumble competition gave local restaurants and caterers the chance to enter their best rhubarb inspired dish. At the end of the day, Pizzaria Delphi took home the Rhubarb Rumble trophy, which will be presented at a Palmer Chamber of Commerce meeting this week.

Various free workshops were offered either inside the Palmer library or outside on the green or by the museum. The workshops ranged from herbology lessons to insect education to how to compost quickly.

The Antique Power Club of Alaska displayed their tractor collection outside the museum to impress and entertain visitors. They also brought a child-sized tractor for kids to enjoy.

Live music began at noon and went on all day at three different locations in the area and hosted a total of 13 different artists.

Heppinstall prefers the newer location out on the green because of the parking options and the central convenience to local shops.

“We try to keep this as accessible as possible, it’s thoroughly flat, we’ve got good trails, and this is all handicap parking in the public library because handicap parking Palmer is kind of a tough issue,” she said.