THE FESTIVAL: Get Swept Away By the Crafts

When Sunday's seven-hour Festival for the Arts ends at 5 p.m., the 380 exhibitors will leave behind quite a mess.

Maybe Eileen and Kevin Schmuck can help clean up.

The couple from Felton, PA, will be in their 11th year at the festival selling simple, but often necessary, household items—brooms.

But a broom is not a broom, is not a broom.

In fact, the Schmucks make a sweeping stick for every occasion.

Regular, whisk, heavy-duty, outdoor, cobweb, heart shaped. You can find them all in the couple's mobile office—a trailer—that they haul to about 10 shows per year.

Bel Air is one of their favorite stops.

"I've never been sorry that we [have come] to Bel Air," Eileen said. "It's … an awesome festival for a Sunday afternoon for a one-day show. It's such a great atmosphere."

Event coordinator Donna Clauer Stufft said that the festival has something for everyone.

"We have a couple of quilt art participants. We have a man who does artwork with butterflies. People are selling things for children. We have a lot of different types of clothing. Stained glass," Stufft said.

Some of the artists, though, are a little bit more creative.

"We have a woman who lives on the seaside and who collects sea glass and … she turns it into jewelry or other things for hanging like wind chimes," Stufft said. "It's just a great eclectic mix of everything imaginable and every year there's always something new."

Stuff added that the Festival as a whole was more environmentally friendly than ever.

"[There are] lots of recycled materials this year, which speaks to going green," she said.

Though Eileen, 51, and Kevin, 57, do not use recycled materials for their brooms, they are a gift from nature.

The 42-inch handles are made of hardwood, and the broomcorn—crops grown specifically for the staple kitchen-cleaning tool—are the main components of the broom. It takes Kevin 20 to 25 minutes to make each one.

"He makes them and then I do the finishing touches. The paperwork, the labeling, the accounting, getting all the shows lined up. Wherever I'm needed," Eileen said.

Kevin's interest in the hobby was sparked when he worked in a broom maker's shop before enlisting in the military. When he returned from the service, the broom maker had died. Kevin needed a new mentor.

"When I come back from the service where I got a job there was a guy doing it there too. He said 'Why don't you try to get some equipment and get back into it?' And that's what I did," Kevin said in his soothing drawl. "And he come down, got me back into training a little more than what I was. And from there we got the 'quipment and did it a year or two without going on the road. Then we started picking up some shows, got a trailer and went from there."

Kevin estimates that each year he produces up to 1,300 brooms, which sell for between $6 (whisk) and $16 (outdoor).

With only two shows remaining on the Schmuck's annual schedule, though, Eileen said this is the time to buy.

"If you're getting brooms you better get them now," she said.

The 45^th annual Bel Air Festival for the Arts is being held rain or shine Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Shamrock Park. Admission is free. This is part of a series of articles about Bel Air's premiere arts and crafts festival.