PORT ANGELES — Combine the talent of an artist with a gypsy’s love to wander, and you’ll get Terry Stolz, or someone mighty like him.
Like his wife, for instance, Helene Cooper.
Stolz crafts all-natural soap and makes pottery soap dishes decorated in petroglyph motifs. Cooper manufactures jewelry.
Together they are on the road much of every year selling their wares at events like the Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts, which concludes its four-day run today.
“That’s all I do,” Stolz said Sunday at his Sierra Nevada Soap Co. tent near the Vern Burton Center, the festival’s headquarters.
“I go to Seattle and do Edmonds, Bellevue, Anacortes. There are a lot of shows in this area.”
Stolz moved to Port Angeles recently from Nevada. Cooper hails from Victoria.
They’ll travel from Anacortes to Albuquerque — and 17 to 22 arts and crafts shows — before they end their roaming in December.
The couple have no children.
“We have a couple of pets, and that’s enough,” Stolz said. “Someone always has to watch them for us.”
A total of 55 vendors
Fifty-five vendors crowd the festival site at Fourth and Peabody streets, ranging from a potter to a puppet maker.
Their approaches to their arts and the roads they ramble vary almost as widely as the items they sell.