ORANGE — People ask Deb Habib incredulously, “The festival that stinks? What is that?”
There’s a curiosity that leads thousands of people each year into the North Quabbin woods for the Garlic & Arts Festival, Habib said, and that shared curiosity — as well of a love of food, art and the environment — cultivates a sense of community.
The 21st annual Garlic & Arts Festival — “the festival that stinks” — is Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 60 Chestnut Hill Road.
“This is a festival that brings a lot of good energy,” Habib said. “It’s like a big family picnic where everyone gets along.”
Fresh farm products from 28 farm vendors, more than 40 artists, 13 nonprofits/community organizations, a large variety of food vendors, healing arts vendors, woodworkers and sustainable energy groups will grace the festival grounds both days, rain or shine.
There are also games for children, music stages and spoken word, and displays scattered across the grounds, from a teepee people will paint during the festival, to a peace and nonviolence garden.
More than 90 percent of the vendors, performers and farmers are from the nine North Quabbin towns or abutting towns.
“We have a policy of keeping it as local and regional as possible,” Habib said. “We live in an area that is very rich culturally, and diverse.”
The Garlic & Arts Festival started in 1999, inspired by a moment the year prior, when local farmer Ricky Baruc was cleaning garlic under a tree at Seeds of Solidarity farm, and pondering the lack of retail venues for the local crop. A neighbor and woodworker, Jim Fountain, stopped by and also lamented — but this time for the lack of art shows in the area.
The idea was born, an unlikely but sensible marriage of garlic and arts, and Baruc and his wife, Habib, as well as Fountain and wife, Alyssa, and neighbor and artist Lydia Grey, began organizing the first Garlic & Arts Festival.
Now 21 years later, the festival has grown tenfold, drawing about 10,000 people to the event, which organizer Diane Nassif described as having a unique ambiance, offering specialties like garlic ice cream.
“It’s a lot of fun, and you can learn a lot at the same time,” Grey said.
A major theme of the festival is sustainability and environmental protection. Despite the thousands of visitors, very little trash is produced during the event that isn’t recycled or composted, Habib said.
Even urine is recycled.
Yes, Rich Earth Institute, a nonprofit based out of Vermont, collects urine from the festival’s portable toilets to be pasteurized and used as fertilizer.
The Going Greener Trail is another attraction, a contemplative walk and children’s activity, where children will walk and write on pieces of paper what they can do to “be greener,” Grey said. It’s run by the youth-led Sunrise Movement and XR.
A Chevrolet Volt is essentially functioning as a battery, with the car powering the festival’s projector; and only carpooling (three or more) festival-goers park in the lot adjacent to the grounds, while others park farther away and take a shuttle.
There’s a focus on sustainability as a core value of the festival, but the quirkiness and community feel of the festival are still the main draw.
“If we called it something like Sustainability Festival, it probably would not have become what it is today,” Habib said.
Eliana Lopez, of Barts Ice Cream, was on site this week helping organizers set up stages, walkways and other infrastructure — part of the festival’s model, Habib said, is that vendors are also volunteers.
Lopez said she was excited to bring Barts Ice Cream back to the festival that’s become a North Quabbin mainstay, and to work alongside some of the farmers who supply the company with ingredients throughout the year.
“It’s great because we had taken over Barts Ice Cream just three years ago, and Garlic & Arts gives us a great way to get involved in the community,” Lopez said. “For us, we use the local farms (for ingredients), so that’s community integration as well.”
This year, the price is $10 for adults, and $5 for students, seniors and EBT cardholders; children under 12 are admitted for free. Saturday admission will get festival-goers in on Sunday as well.
Along with the new prices, the festival entrance and sales tent will accept Common Good local currency, as well as debit and credit cards.
Two new chefs have been added to the Garlic & Arts Chef Demonstration Tent lineup —Nyanyika Banda, a restaurateur who has returned to the area from the Midwest, and Nalini Goordial, who runs Nalini’s Kitchen at Quabbin Harvest Food Coop. They join chefs Rob Sacco, of Athol’s Soup on the Fly; Cristina Garcia, of Athol’s The Farm School; Hannah Jacobsen-Hardy, of Williamsburg’s Sweet Birch Herbals and Full Moon Ghee; and Mark Ellis, of Petersham’s Clamber Hill Inn and Restaurant. Garlic is an ingredient in each demo dish, of course.
Habib said the festival has “changed” the region — it provides a boost economically, and artists “make connections that result in greater sales.”
But, most of all, people leave the festival feeling good and more connected, she said.
“The beautiful thing is the community,” she said. “You can talk to the farmer who makes your food.”
Reach David McLellan at dmclellan@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 268.