Freak flags flew and Oregonians and out-of-state visitors got weird at the 38th annual Oregon Country Fair outside Veneta on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
A web of dirt paths lined with adult-sized tree houses, the fairgrounds featured musicians, artists, artisans, performers, activists, parades and delicacies for a variety of palates.
With 44,200 spectators visiting throughout the weekend, the gathered throngs gave rise to some strange impromptu scenes.
At mid-morning Saturday, the Chicken Little stilt-walkers tottered down one of the paths dressed as enormous chickens. The performers confronted a crowd of stunned onlookers and, while dropping rubber eggs from under their costumes, instructed the crowd to say “guess what?”
Two members complied immediately prompting the chickens to bend over on their stilts and shout in unison “CHICKEN BUTT!”
Some women walked around with colors, scenes and faces drawn on their bare chests, and at least one nude man (with a wince-inducing genital piercing) shook what his momma gave him at one of the stages.
Nathan Verhoeven, 20, who has attended the fair since his birth, stood in the tree house above the booth from which his parents sold sculptures and watched the crowd snake along the dirt path. He said that in years past many more people were nude at the fair – including a naked parade – but that now the fairs planners have relegated that kind of behavior to the evenings when many of the fair-goers have left. He said the growth of the fair has led to the crackdown to make it more accessible to families.
Monica Shovlin, a Country Fair spokeswoman, said that no policy exists concerning clothing.
Kara McKinney, Verhoven’s family friend, stood next to him watching and counting the bare-chests she saw. It was her second year attending the fair and her first staying overnight. She said despite the size of the crowds, the fair exuded an air of tolerance and acceptance. She said she showered that morning in the communal showers known as “The Ritz.” She said that she had never been nude around so many people before, but found it liberating.
“You feel really safe here,” McKinney said. “You don’t have to feel self-conscious – nobody cares.”
Even people who would normally be rude or cruel put on their manners at the fair and get into the hippy vibe.
She laughed as a stilt-walker dressed in leather walked by dangling a feather on a fishing pole in front of a young woman dressed as a cat who batted at it, meowing playfully.
“Its like Mardi Gras,” she said as a parade passed with giant puppets and people in bizarre masquerade outfits.
Another of their friends, Ian Jordan, said simply “I never imagined it to be like this.”
In another part of the fair, artist Mark Henson’s wares drew particular attention from passers-by. His oil paintings, which often showcase the political and the sensual side by side, raise difficulties for parents who want to answer their children’s questions but have difficulty doing so. Many in attendance stopped to examine one of his paintings “March of Progress.”
The painting portrays the modern world as a mountain built on tanks and construction vehicles with a peak made of smokestacks and surrounded by mushroom clouds, spewing fire onto a ring of trees. A menagerie of animals is shown fleeing hopelessly from the fire.
Another, Temple Transmutation, shows roots of trees growing into rock statues of humans in a variety of sexual positions, who then morph into computer chips.
“It’s controversial, it’s not mainstream,” his wife and “spokespersonette,” Monti Moore said.
During the winter Henson lives on a farm in Costa Rica where he paints and raises crops, and during summer and fall he travels the “road scene” at a variety of different country-fair type events throughout the West Coast.
Henson said people have come up to him and said that they’ve met at his galleries and married and had children.
“That’s the best reward,” he said.
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