Unique Aspects
of the Kutztown Festival
CRAFTS
Watch, and often work with,
200 of the nation’s finest juried craftsmen demonstrating and explaining
their skills. Interaction, particularly for kids, is encouraged.
Hot! Hot! Hot! Molten glass
blown and shaped into works of art at eleven hundred degrees by our
Glass Blowers
The Nations last 3 remaining
professional hex sign painters are all at the Festival – Eric Claypoole,
Bill Schuster and Ivan Hoyt.
Eric Claypoole is the last
hex sign and barn star painter who still climbs and paints the hex signs
directly onto barns… the same technique used on PA Dutch barns for
the last 200 years.
Nationally renowned Redware
potter Ned Foltz is just one of many traditional potters who demonstrate
their unique styles and techniques of their craft.
Duane Wendling of Kutztown
is just one of many woodworkers who make the finest handcrafted period
reproductions of traditional Pennsylvania Dutch furniture.
Jon Bond is a traditional
PA Dutch folkart painter whose works are collected internationally.
You can watch Jon and many other folk art painters practice their unique
form of Americana art at the Festival.
Brenda Boyer of Kutztown
grows her own flowers, then uses them to create her dried flower arrangements
with a Victorian, “days of past” flair.
Traditional timber framing
techniques come alive with our old fashioned barn raising. See the timber
framers turn rough logs into a finely finished building using traditional
hand tools.
ENTERTAINMENT
6 Stages of traditional
folk music, dancing, and diverse entertainment including Storytelling,
Tall Tales, and a wide variety of PA Dutch educational entertainment,
such as PA Dutch Dialect lessons, history, religion and other cultural
aspects that make the PA Dutch so unique.
4 Generations of hoedown
dancers, the Lester Miller Family Dancers
Enjoy the sounds of two
19th century “impromptu” brass bands, so often a part
of any community celebration.
Children, and parents too,
can ride the last remaining horse powered carousel actively working
in the country.
The Fourth of July parade
at the Kutztown Folk Festival has now been going on for 59 years, and
has been named by many as “The Hokiest Parade In America.” Come
see why.
FOOD
Visit our traditional summer
kitchen and see full meals being cooked on a woodstove, and totally
prepared by hand. You can even sample some of the “good old PA Dutch
cooking”
Follow the aromas to our
19th Century outdoor stone bake oven and watch Gary Hertzog
bake traditional round bread in the rebuilt 200 year old structure.
Viola Miller first introduced
the world to funnel cake 58 years ago at the Kutztown Folk Festival.
Susanne Sharadin continues the tradition with this classic PA Dutch
treat, making them to order and served piping hot!
Watch the day long process
to roast and slow-cook a 900 pound ox over an open fire. Better yet,
eat some for lunch!
You’ll find pig snout,
scrapple, sausages, tongue, pickled pigs feet and lots of other unique
Dutch “treats” at the Festival Farmers Market. Verna Dietrich and
her family keep these old fashioned traditions alive and well, and serve
them up to the visitors of the Kutztown Folk Festival!
FOLKLIFE
See our collection of some
of the Nation’s finest horse drawn wagons and sleighs, including Amish
and Mennonite buggies, the PA Dutch Conestoga wagon, and even a very
rare sleigh hearse.
Experience a traditional
Amish wedding, Mennonite hymn singing, and traditional church services
in PA Dutch dialect.
Experience the quiet power
of a 19th century Hot-steam Tractor, one of the last remaining
tractors of it’s kind still in operation.
Bail straw, shuck some
corn, bag barley and work up an appetite at one of our many active farm
displays and demonstrations.
Take a tour through our
traditional four square herb garden, the family market for herbs, food
and flowers. Learn the many traditional uses of the plants that grow
all around us.
Be careful raising your
hand at our daily country auction, or you could be the proud owner of
… an antique… who knows what it is?
Learn about the past generation’s
old medicine, beliefs, and cures, as well as many of the folk beliefs
and tales that served as the rural community’s guideposts to survival
and a better life.
Who are the PA Dutch? Find
out more at our Seminar tent, where experts spend the day talking about
what makes us different, and why have we remained so unique, even after
being Americans for almost 300 years…
Be a part of the jury as
you witness the reenactment of Suzanna Cox’s prosecution and hanging,
the last woman ever executed in Pennsylvania, and whose death brought
about the American Appeals System, the cornerstone of our American Legal
Rights today.
See a PA Dutch rifle being
made and shot. Did you know that the Kentucky Longrifle was actually
first the Pennsylvania Longrifle, and Daniel Boone, born and raised
in Berks County, Pennsylvania made it famous when he took it to Kentucky?
KIDS
Kids keep going back to
play and jump in the giant hay stack and traditional hay maze. After
all these years, there is still something special about shoving hay
down your brother’s shirt…
Children can paint a part
of our giant PA Dutch mural, with hex signs, barns, animals, and all
the things that make up a farm, leaving their handiwork as a part of
this wonderful picture of traditional family farm life
Kids can actually try their
hand at making cider, apple butter, sauerkraut, soap, candles, and a
variety of other foods and notions of the 19th century.
Without a doubt, the favorite
place for kids is feeding and watching the animals at Noah’s World
Petting Zoo, which features not only traditional farm animals, but a
variety of not so usual ones, as well.
One entire stage is dedicated
to Children, featuring puppet shows, kids, sing-alongs, story telling,
and a variety of other unique children’s activities.
QUILTS
Visit America’s largest
Quilt Sale, featuring over 2,000 juried American made Quilts.
Purchase one of the top
20 Prize Winning Quilts at the Annual Quilt Auction, where record setting
prices have often been set for unbelievably beautiful quilts at this
exciting and fast paced event, always on the 2nd Saturday
of the Festival at the Main Stage.
You can learn to quilt, and add your quilted square to the Festival’s Visitors Quilt; one being made every year entirely by visitors, and displayed yearly for you to see your addition to this wonderful piece of folk artwork year after year.