Soap Lake Food and Folk Festival grows with second venue, bigger crowd

SOAP LAKE — The third annual Soap Lake Food and Folk Festival added a new venue this year.

“Cloudview Farm offered us the partnership and the manpower for getting the thing together,” said Ruthann Tobiason of the Friends of the Lower Grand Coulee, which puts on the festival. “We really needed that because we’ve been running on the energy of a handful of volunteers.”

The festival ran for two days, with interactive exhibits and workshops at various locations in Soap Lake. There was a guitar workshop with musician Carl Tosten, held at the Bistro at Soap Lake Natural Spa & Resort, and Walla Walla-based Micah and Me offered a ukulele workshop at the Soap Lake Community Center. Cloudview Kitchen hosted free live music in the evening, for anyone who wanted to come and enjoy the show.

“It’s a big deal for them to let all these musicians take over, allowing people to come in and listen to music,” Tobiason said. “Nobody’s asking you to buy a coffee, no admission, you can just come and listen.” 

The last two years, the musical acts and vendors have set up in Smokiam Park, where audiences had to provide their own seating, and the stage was a concrete platform walled in with hay bales. This year, the event moved out to Cloudview Farm, located on Frey Road between Ephrata and Soap Lake. Cloudview Farm has recently been expanding to offer performance space, said Jim Baird, who owns both the farm and Cloudview Kitchen, and he was happy to let the Friends of the Lower Grand Coulee use it.

“We had 30-plus vendors, and six bands that played from 12 o’clock to 10 o’clock,” Baird said. “I don’t have a good count on exactly how many hundreds of people came through, but it was a busy, engaged time, for sure.”

Columbia Basin Allied Arts was there with its mobile art unit Arts Quest, an open space where both kids and adults could dabble in various art media.

“Right now we’re working with weaving, book making, block printing and a community mural,” said CBAA Executive Director Shawn Cardwell. The mural isn’t permanent, Cardwell explained; it’s a paper mural that’s changed for every event.

“The mural is an opportunity for folks to explore different mediums," she said. "We have charcoal, oil pastels, paint markers, some stuff that’s fun to experiment with.”

The weather was warm, but not brutally hot, Baird said. “I think the high of the day was 86 degrees. In the Columbia Basin, it could easily have been 96 or 106. Most people were able to find shade … (There was) just enough breeze and not too much heat.”

The acts that performed were a varied lot. World music guitarist and composer Leif Totusek has been a staple of the festival, performing both the last two years. Singer-songwriter Nick Cain was new, as was Kendall Lujan, a singer-songwriter from Portland who shows influences of jazz, bosso nova and country, according to her website. Lujan was fresh off a European tour, Tobiason said, and her debut album “Lucky Penny” was released last year. The bluegrass band Tinned Fish performed traditional bluegrass with beautiful three-way vocal harmonies, Baird said.

The artists went beyond just a stage show, Tobiason said; they charmed the audience by including them in the show.

“Every single performer interacted with the audience,” she said. “On stage they told stories, they talked to (audience members). They were welcoming when people walked up to say ‘Thank you.’ I saw people getting their hands shaken over and over again.”

The final act of the day was Yogoman Burning Band, which blends elements of New Orleans, Caribbean and African traditions.

“It was an amazing performance,” Baird said. “It was the closing show of the evening, so the sun was going down and the shade had moved in. The biggest amount of dancing occurred at that golden hour.”

After three years, the Soap Lake Food and Folk Festival isn’t the grand event its organizers envisioned, but it’s growing and evolving, Tobiason said, adding that this year’s turnout appeared to be larger than last year’s.

“I’m reassured by the folks who are professionals that it just taken time for the word to get out,” she said. “We’re learning as we go.”

“I really enjoyed the energy that local people brought to our farm here,” Baird said. “It’s a really good gathering that brings music and people together.”

    Leif Totusek and Freestyle Candela perform Saturday at Cloudview Farms for the Soap Lake Food and Folk Festival.
  

    Aaron Canwell of Micah and Me leads a ukulele workshop at the Soap Lake Food and Folk Festival.
  

    Big Bend music instructor John Owen leads a bucket drumming workshop at the Soap Lake Food and Folk Festival Saturday.
  

    Bluegrass band Tinned Fish performs at the third annual Soap Lake Food and Folk Festival Saturday.