Creative talents fill the San Diego County Fair

Every summer, the San Diego County Fair comes to Del Mar, appearing almost magically at the racetrack the second week of June, then disappearing a month later. One of the biggest transformations takes place on the infield of the race track where a large white tent is erected the third week in May to house the Creative Youth Exhibit, formerly known as “Kid’s Best.”

This year I had an opportunity to find out how much work goes into putting up the youth exhibit and the judging of all the entries. According to Barbara Kennedy, Creative Youth coordinator, her staff of 28 began installing the exhibits on May 21 and worked seven days a week through

June 5.

As with the Dr. Seuss theme in 2004, the Out of this World theme this year brought in 18,000 entries from children ages 5 to 17. The staff received 15,000 pieces of art from 120 schools from Temecula to Tijuana plus 3,000 individual entries (1,120 in art, over 800 in photography and about 1,100 in crafts/sewing). Some schools submitted between 700 and 800 pictures, paying $12 per grade level. Classes in kindergarten through sixth grade can send as many pieces of artwork as they want to submit.

Kennedy said, “One staff person goes down [to Tijuana] and works with schools down there. The kids come up in bus loads so excited to see their stuff. It’s very rewarding.”

Kennedy also worked with Boys & Girls Clubs to help children in military families; 120 entries came from that group this year.

She said there were more computer-generated entries in art this year and she had seen website contests at other fairs so has added one here. Kennedy, who has been in charge of the youth exhibits for 12 years, works on planning exhibits and activities from October to July for each fair season, and then travels to other fairs the rest of the time looking for ideas of new contests for the kids to enter. (Among the other fairs she visits are the Ventura County Fair, Texas State Fair and New Mexico State Fair.)

The school entries are not judged individually but given seals of excellence for participating. Some group projects, like murals and banners, are given special awards of excellence. Individual contest entries are judged by volunteers who award blue and red ribbons as well as best of show in each division. A special environmental awareness award is also given out and all students and teachers are given tickets to get into the fair free.

Beyond those awards, 155 donated awards (ribbons and money) are presented to individual entries by non-profit groups around the county. One of those groups is Rainbow Valley Grange. As longtime secretary of the grange, I have been sending the prize money to the winners of our donated awards each year. This year, for the first time, my sister and I went to the fair to pick the winners of those awards in the categories of art, photography, creative writing and recycled craft.

As former preschool teachers and junior grange leaders, we were excited to see all the entries and judge them for ourselves. The creative talents of the child exhibitors were both amazing and inspiring, including a detailed drawing of an African boy, an origami peacock, jewelry fashioned from bobby pins and pop top tabs, and a quilt depicting a child fishing in a pond. While some artists were more talented than others, it was obvious a lot of time and energy were invested in what they created.

We were encouraged to award prizes to the younger exhibitors and to not give awards to entries that had already been given special awards. The latter suggestion eliminated a few of our preliminary choices, but since judging is a very subjective task, we were able to pick out what we considered unique and extraordinary efforts for our awards.

Our prize winners were a colored drawing of a sunflower in a garden done by a 9 year old, a photographed nightscape of the moon taken by an 11 year old, a story about a Ferris wheel that flies to Mars written by a 9 year old, and a water tank go-cart put together by a 12 year old.

Kennedy said that the contests are “forever evolving, changing with the times.” We enjoyed the whole experience (lunch and goodie bags were included for the judges), and look forward to judging again next year and seeing what new creations the kids come up with. For more information on the fair and its contests, see http://www.sdfair.com.

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