Whirligig festival in Shelburne called off

After nearly 25 years, the Whirligig & Weathervane Festival in Shelburne, N.S., has been grounded indefinitely.

Organizers announced in a social media post this week that struggles finding volunteers and builders of the wind-powered dioramas led them to the difficult decision to cancel the annual September event this year and beyond.

"I think it's a combination of people not having the capacity to give their extra time, which is understandable, but also there's been a lot of folks that have moved away or have changed their priorities," said Therese Cruz, a member of the Shelburne Area Whirligig & Weathervane Society, in an interview with Information Morning.

"It was really hard for us to continue without having all that manpower to go with it."

Staging the festival requires year-round planning, Cruz said, with organizers tasked with finding sponsors and donors, as well as people looking to exhibit and sell their work.

Artists and festivalgoers have been disappointed by the news, she said, because the annual festival on the Shelburne waterfront provided one of the few avenues for showcasing the art pieces.

One festival vendor, Kathy Collupy, said she was surprised to hear the festival was struggling to find volunteers since it's been well attended by people from both within and outside the community.

Collupy, who sells jewelry and her husband Robert's whirligigs at the festival, added that the event had been a great way to get the art to whirligig enthusiasts.

"The children just love them," she said. "I think a lot of people will be disappointed."

Festival featured national and international artists

Cruz said the history of the festival goes back to 2000, when Herschel Specter launched the first event in Shelburne, drawing inspiration from a similar festival in North Carolina and giving people who were already whirligig makers a chance to display their work.

Whirligig and weathervane artists from Ontario, British Columbia and as far away as Pennsylvania have been featured at the festival.

Recently, Cruz said, the society had added a new project — Art Gigs — to allow festivalgoers to decorate a blank whirligig with their own art.

The intricate wind-powered pieces can be more than just pinwheels. The ones featured at the festival were often very complex, Cruz said, describing one memorable piece in particular.

"It was essentially a scene of a gravedigger," she said. "Every time the wind hit the propeller, it would actually have the coffin go up and down. I know it sounds dark but in that scenario, it's actually quite funny and quirky because it adds that little whimsy to the otherwise dark representation."

Enthusiasts on the hunt for wind-powered art may have luck at the Nova Scotia Folk Art Festival held every summer in Lunenburg, said Cruz, who hopes the whirligig festival will be revived sometime in the future.

For now, she said the society will be donating its proceeds to a local arts organization "to continue on that legacy of promoting local and folk art and support people that would actually want to continue on that as well."