Here’s What You Missed at the 2023 Mountain Day Festival

By Kinsley Rapier

Buena Vista’s annual Mountain Day Festival took place this past Saturday, October 14th. It was a day filled with fun performances, good food, and a wide variety of vendors. The Mountain Day Festival is a great way to get out of the house and meet some of the small businesses in our area. You can spend the day shopping for unique handmade items or just strolling down Magnolia Avenue listening to the live band. It is easy to feel the camaraderie of a small town when you get to know some of the hard-working people in the community. Here are just a few of the incredible vendors featured at this year’s Festival.

Above is Tomlin Family Acres selling their homemade jams. They harvest their own fruit and make a wide range of different jams and canned goods. In addition to the ones listed on the board, they also make special flavors for the holidays such as pepper jam. The recipes they use have been passed down through four generations. Below is Corey Egbert Illustrations. Corey is a BV native who travels all around to different small town festivals showcasing his work. He sells stickers, prints, and books that he illustrated.

Here we have Hook Needle and Knot teamed up with Gabe’s Pots. Husband and wife duo, Gabe Wagner and Nicole Farnsworth, have just begun selling their art at local festivals this year. Gabe is a recent SVU alumni who is currently working as the Southern Virginia Men’s Volleyball Assistant Coach and selling his handmade pottery. Gabe learned how to make pottery here at SVU and his mugs have become very popular with the locals. Nicole is also a recent SVU alumni graduating with Gabe last Spring. Nicole has been teaching herself how to make the adorable fall decorations you see on the right. Her most popular items are her chickens (which sold out before I got there), ghosts and pumpkins.

Dreadhead Forge makes the beautiful wooden bowls pictured above. The artist, who’s name I forgot to get, very fittingly has long dreads that match the outdoorsy aesthetic of his bowls. All of his pieces are handmade on his lathe. Pictured below is Melissa Wheeler, our very own ceramics teacher here at SVU. Professor Wheeler graduated from SVU and is now pursuing a Masters of Fine arts while she passes on her specialized knowledge of functional and decorative ceramics to her students. While we were there, Professor Wheeler taught us about the underglaze transfers she used to put the labels on the potion bottles you see up front!

There were so many more incredible vendors at this year’s Mountain Day Festival that I wish I could feature. Each one with an interesting story to tell and a special tie to the town we temporarily call home. Make sure that you catch next year’s Mountain Day and get to know some of the people behind the businesses in BV.