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  lisa ark June 6, 2011 at 8:45pm

  thanks Jim, for keeping us updated on the approaching storm!
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  Jim Parker June 6, 2011 at 10:10am

  @Richard Sullivan: You should contact Leah Alters at the Columbus Art Fair organization. They had people helping to document the damage, and were asking artists who sustained losses to inform them of the extent of the damage. She would be your best source of information, I think.
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  Jim Parker June 6, 2011 at 10:09am

  We were there. Our booth was on Long Street. The storm formed directly over Columbus from nothing. I saw it on the radar about a half an hour before it actually hit. You could see it in the sky. The show personnel came around and warned people at 7:15 that there was a big cell coming around 9:30, but didn't know about the primary threat. My guess is that they hadn't seen it on radar when they sent the runners out. It formed quickly.
  

  
  

  At our end of the show, three tents were blown into a fourth glass display on Washington St. Joe Becker, the glass artist, got smacked in the head with a weight, but seemed ok. He lost about half of his work, but was up and running on Sunday. Erik Dahlager, the photographer next to Joe, was set up on Sunday, too, with some of his work. The fiber artist and the jeweler, whose tents blew into Joe and Erik's, were gone. We got our awnings down and the tent buttoned up just before the wind hit, and the rain started flying. It was like Ann Arbor State St. at the corner of Maynard and William. Just torrential rain for about fifteen minutes, small pea-sized hail and gusty winds. We took about 4 inches of water in the back of the booth and listened to the lighting striking close by. Most of the artists at our end of the show were ok. Rob Coomer told me he had some damage from flooding in his booth on Washington but was otherwise fine. Steve Vaughn and Chris Maher, just down the street, were also ok. Appears as if the winds were very selective at our end. I suspect EZ-UP were the culprits.

  But the worst damage was at the other end of the street, along Cleveland, near the art center; and on Long, in back of the art center. Pat Whalen's booth on Long went completely down. So did Mark McKinnon's double booth on Long, which backed up to a parking lot. Both of those artists are seasoned vets, with strong tents and heavy weights. About half the tents on Cleveland were completely destroyed. All in all, there were 34 booths destroyed, out of about 240. The pictures on Facebook of the storm were taken from windows in the art center, and show Cleveland Street.Two photographers I know were near the damage: Leah Cavanah and Joel Anderson. Neither had major damage. Leah C. was so shaken that she packed up to leave, and helped other artists retrieve what they could. She told me that a ceramics guy at the end lost his tent completely. It went flying into the air, and they couldn't even locate it! The 40' food tent in the parking lot behind Long Street went up in the air, and landed in a tree. It was not weighted. Luckily for the artist behind the tree on Long, the tree caught the tent before it landed on them! A transformer blew out on Cleveland, and we heard the bang and saw the sparks from two blocks away.

  People were calm. It happened very quickly. After the storm, we all came out and surveyed the damage. Knowing there was another larger storm following in this one's footsteps, the show organizers shut down the show for the night. We all did what we could to help our neighbors close up and secure things for the evening. Many took art back to their vehicles for the night. We took our photographs down and stowed them in the big carry boxes in the tent. Everything went up where it was dry. Lots of people lost things that were on the pavement to high water. But the second storm did no damage, luckily. It was mostly just rain and lightning. 

  Sunday morning, Leah Alters, the show director, sent all artists an email. They set up two large festival tents for those that wanted to soldier on with what work had been salvaged, and let everyone know that there was no penalty for pulling out early. Many of the Cleveland St. artists came back on Sunday. The GCAF Facebook page was clear that the show would continue on Sunday and urged patrons to come out and support the artists. Only one person was injured that I know of, and that was Leah Alter's husband, Kyle, who was helping a glass artist secure a tent, when he took a glass shard to the arm. We saw him at the show with his wife at the end of the show, arm in a sling, making sure that everyone was okay, and getting packed up. Way to go! 

  The threat of another storm late in the day Sunday caused many of us to start packing around 5. The show people came by around 5:30 and officially closed the show. Although the two pop-up storms looked bad, they divided and passed to the north and south of us, leaving us all dry for the load-out. Talk about thankful artists, who'd already been through a lot. 

  The Columbus Arts Festival has a page where you can donate to help those artists that lost work or equipment.  https://columbusartsfestival.org/get-involved/artist-relief-fund.php
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  Richard P Sullivan June 6, 2011 at 9:27am

  I would be very interested to hear what artists suffered severe damage as we may be able to assist them.
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  Christine Green June 6, 2011 at 8:36am

  So sad for the artists that work so hard to prepare for their shows. Even with advance warning sometimes the strength of Mother Nature is too much to resist and life becomes more important than work. This is such a difficult Spring and Summer with the weather. Would like to hear from those artists that insure their work and if they have received compensation for weather events.
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  Carla Bank June 6, 2011 at 2:49am

  That is so sad :*(
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  Connie Mettler June 5, 2011 at 9:18pm

  Here is a recent story on this. http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2011/06/05/...
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  Bj McHugh June 5, 2011 at 7:58pm

  My heart goes out to these artists. I was at Broad Ripple a couple of weeks ago when 10 booths were lost. Don't we have enough to deal with???

   
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  Annette Piper June 5, 2011 at 6:05pm

  How awful.
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  Bonnie Blandford June 5, 2011 at 4:59pm

  Thanks for adding this Gary...