Published Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Puckett Station's wares to range from books to birdhouses

By BEN SMITH

bsmith@newnan.com

This year's Puckett Station Arts and Crafts Festival will feature fine art, plants, baked goods, birdhouses and kettle corn.

Several of the vendors are coming for the first time including Moreland resident Shelley Laurin, who will be bringing her paintings. The annual July 4th festival will be held Saturday from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. in Moreland. There will be exhibitors in the Moreland Mill and in the area around Moreland United Methodist Church.

Lauren has been a watercolor painter for 15 years.

Her art has previously been on exhibit in the Newnan-Coweta Art Association's Sidewalk Festival and the Spring Show at the Centre for Performing and Visual Arts. Lauren's artwork has also been on display in Espresso Lane, a coffee shop on the square in downtown Newnan, and was recently awarded the People's Choice award in March for her painting of a deer in the woods entitled "Listening."

In addition, Lauren as been teaching an art class in her home for eight years.

Chuck Bell is a kettle corn and pork rinds vendor. Kettle Corn is a "caramel flavored popcorn," Bell said. Pork rinds are meat skins that are cut in to "chips" then "dipped into a 400 degree grease and cooked until they swell to the finished product," he explained.

Bell has been selling pork rinds and kettle corn at the community celebration for two years. Gretchen Deichelbor, the festival's longtime organizer, contacted Bell and invited him to sell his products at Puckett Station two years ago.

Bell said he really enjoys this hobby, and it provides relief from his everyday routine. He also said he enjoys meeting people.

Wesley Daniell will be coming to Puckett Station for the first time from Winston in Douglas County. "I do creative, one-of-a-kind birdhouses," he said. The birdhouses have been an avocation for about 30 years.

"I did it just as a hobby mostly. About three years ago, I decided I'd start building and selling them. It's something I've always enjoyed doing," Daniell said.

At least three authors will have books in the Moreland Mill on Saturday. Eddie Carroll, who grew up in Coweta County, has written "Blood Kin," a novel which has Moreland as its setting. "Everyone will recognize the landmarks I have written about," said Carroll, who now lives in Murfreesboro, Tenn.

Local writers John Hickman and C.E. Walz will also be at the festival. Hickman is a novelist, whose works include "Common Clay," "The Man In Muddy Creek" and "The Right Edge of Evil."

Walz is a children's book author as well as an educator. She has been teaching writing for more than 25 years and currently teaches English and chairs the middle school English department at Woodward Academy in College Park.

She will have her children's book, "Alley Loo:A Spooky Swamp Tale" in Moreland. Walz also wrote, "Mary's Treasure Box," a Christmas book for children.

(Note: Ben Smith is writing as an intern with The Times-Herald news staff this summer.