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Dan Price is Lead for Saybrook Arts and Crafts Festival

With more than 140 vendors and just as many personalities, managing to mount the annual Old Saybrook Arts and Crafts Festival successfully each year is always a challenge—but if anyone understands how to do it, it’s Dan Price, who for the second time, chairs the event for the Old Saybrook Chamber of Commerce.

As an artist and former arts show exhibitor, Dan understands what it takes to make it successful for both the artists and the Old Saybrook Chamber of Commerce.

“One of the benefits of doing this show is that I already know many of the artists personally and have done shows with them,” Dan says. “About 70 percent of the [Festival’s] artists return each year. This is a good show for them.”

The Arts Festival is scheduled for Saturday, July 29 from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. and Sunday, July 30, from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Exhibitors will be setting up the show starting on Friday evening. The show goes on rain or shine. Admission to the show as well as parking are free. Proceeds of the event support Chamber scholarships and Chamber programming.

Exhibitors that commit early to return the next year have the option of reserving the same exhibit booth location for the next year’s show, if they choose.

“A lot of returning artists want their particular spot, where they’ve been before. People coming to the show know to look for them there,” Dan says.

A requirement of all exhibitors in the Old Saybrook Arts and Crafts Festival is that they must only sell things that they themselves make.

“We’re very strict about that,” Dan says.

The booths this year will have exhibitors that sell paintings, pottery, jewelry, wood, fabric creations, photography, mixed media and sculpture. As in prior years, the Youth & Family Services Agency booth will display and offer for sale art made by town youth.

“Local civic organizations like the Rotary Club, the Knights of Columbus, and others make and sell the food at the Show,” Dan says.

Volunteers support Dan’s organizing team by manning booths while artists take brief breaks, by answering Festival attendees’ questions, and by helping cars to park on the field behind Town Hall.

Chairing this event is a labor of love for Dan since it helps both the Chamber and his fellow artists.

For the past 15 years, Dan has worked full-time selling advertising for the Full Power Radio group based in Ledyard and painted on nights and weekends.

“I’ve been painting marine art for 25 years,” Dan says.

For the first 15 years of his career as an artist, though, he painted full-time and exhibited at shows like this one.

“My wife Lynne and I had just built a house in Old Lyme when I told her I wanted to quit my job and do art full-time,” Dan says.

Every summer after that for the next 15 years, when the children were out of school, the family would travel from Maine to Virginia Beach; Dan would exhibit his marine water-color paintings at arts and crafts shows and the family would vacation in a new place each weekend.

“My kids, now grown, tell me they look back fondly on those summer vacations,” Dan says.

At one of these early shows, a submarine captain’s wife admired his marine paintings and commissioned him to do a pencil drawing of her husband’s submarine passing Ledge Light.

With that one commission—and lots of word of mouth recommendations—Dan now has carved out a special niche as the artist of paintings to mark naval changes of command and of wardroom gifts.

“I’ve done four submarine commissioning portraits that hang in the [ships’] wardrooms and I helped design the USS Connecticut’s seal. My works have been given to two presidents, two vice presidents, and one first lady, and to many admirals,” Dan says.

“My mother was a very good pen and ink artist. She got me interested in it,” Dan says. “I’ve always been interested in boats. So I do marine subjects like lighthouses, tall ships, and now military subjects, especially for the submarine service.”

Due to his work for the Coast Guard and the Navy and their officers, he also has had the opportunity to sail with them on short trips.

“I’ve sailed on the [Coast Guard] Barque Eagle for a week and rode the [submarine USS] Minneapolis-St. Paul from New London to Norfolk,” Dan says.

Dan balances the two simultaneous careers, selling radio advertising during the week and painting marine art, mostly using watercolors, on nights and weekends.

“I work six days a week,” Dan says.

As a volunteer, Dan sits on the Board of Directors for the Old Saybrook Chamber of Commerce. In that role, he helped to organize the Chamber’s first car show last year and for the second year, has taken the lead over the Arts and Crafts Festival.

“This is a great Chamber of Commerce. [Executive Director] Judy [Sullivan] and Karen [Pinette] do a phenomenal job. I’m really happy to helping this organization,” Dan says.