SALT LAKE CITY -- The Living Traditions Festival, celebrated this weekend on the grounds of the Salt Lake City & County Building, offers live music and dance, as well as a taste of food and crafts from around the world.
Barbara Jones of Layton, and Box Elder County resident Rios Pacheco, are among the artisans demonstrating traditional skills during the festival. Jones creates pioneer-style braided rugs, and Pacheco is a beadworker from the Northwestern Band of Shoshone.
Admission to the three-day festival is free.
In addition to Jones and Pacheco, artisans from throughout the state will be demonstrating everything from how to make Armenian and Tibetan hand-knotted carpets, to creating bobbin lace.
The variety of booths, with some items just for demonstration and others for sale, includes European-style decorated eggs, jewelry, Hawaiian leis, ceramic flowers from Iran, weaving from Sweden and the Karen people of Myanmar, American Indian silversmithing, Peruvian retablos (three-dimensional scenes), Russian head dresses, baskets by the Bantu weavers of Somali, Sudanese clay bulls, Turkish crocheting, Maori-inspired pottery, and Pueblo pottery.
Mexican traditions will be represented with Day of the Dead art, paper flowers and repujado (embossed metal). There will also be demonstrations of the arts of Japanese bonsai, calligraphy and origami, carving from Europe and Tonga, and Henna skin decoration from East India.
The food market features traditional tastes from Mexico, Vietnam, Tonga, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lebanon, Nepal, Pakistan, Italy, Tahiti, Sudan, Greece, the Philippines, Switzerland, Turkey, Tibet, Central America, Laos, Thailand, and the Basque regions of Spain and France. American Indian foods and soul food are also on the menu.
For more information, call 801-596-5000 or find the complete schedule at http://livingtraditionsfestival.com.