By Brian Ojanpa
AMBOY — Leora Johnson sat on a park bench along Amboy’s main drag Saturday, noshing on street vendor fare and marveling at the town’s metamorphosis.
“In 1952 there were seven farm implement dealers here,” she said as she gazed upon the small town’s storefront mix of art galleries, antique shops and sundry boutiques.
“It’s a changing world.”
Part of that change is Amboy’s Arts ’N More Festival, now in its third year and emblematic of a rural Minnesota town that keeps solidifying its identity.
The two-day event is an eclectic, laid-back blend of artisan stands, food vendors, a farmers market, a Saturday parade and off-the-wall stuff.
Roy Holmberg shoots off his artillery cannon a couple of times a day just for the shucks of it, and Dean Runge runs herd on a minnow race.
He has this water trough thing rigged up with eight lanes separated by dividers. Children pick minnows to race and winners get a dollar.
“Kids get wild over this,” said Runge, never mind the small glitch last year when he discovered the hard way that his lane engineering came up short.
“The minnows were too small and shot under the dividers.”
The festival was started as a way to introduce people to musical and artistic endeavors. That was fine, but it could only attract a niche audience.
When it expanded upon its basics, its popularity did likewise.
This year the number of vendors increased, and the festival has become a hybrid form of art fair and street carnival.
“This is really a nice little town. It has a lot going for it,” said Al Steinberg, who operated an art gallery in the Twin Cities and Vernon Center before moving his business to an Amboy building constructed in 1885.
Some half-dozen structures in town have been restored with the help of a $600,000-plus grant for the renovation of historic buildings.
Actually, Amboy-area artist Kerry Kelleher said, it was the opening of Steinberg’s gallery that served as a focal point for local artists who were largely unaware of each other.
“It’s still a sleepy little town, but it’s kind of starting to wake up, I think,” Kelleher said.
The festival continues through today.
