The Vane Event -- For A Breath Of Fresh Air, It's Hard To Beat This Annual Street Fair

Dick Libby has a penchant for the peculiar.

For the past 13 years, the artist and junk collector has made a living selling weather vanes - portable ones made of wood, scrap metal, car radiators and just about anything he picks up and finds interesting.

And each weather vane has a story - one fabricated straight out of Libby's head. Take, for instance, "The Long-Lost Portable Weathervane of Jonathan Trumbull." With a spinning metal salmon and a stamp of the American revolutionary, the wind vane once was used by Trumbull to determine wind direction during battles. So the Libby legend goes.

Libby, 52, is one of more than 500 artists and food vendors featured at this weekend's University District StreetFair. Recognized as the traditional kickoff for other summer street fairs in the Seattle area, the University District event also offers live entertainment by modern and ethnic folk dancers, mimes, bands and marionettes. Admission is free.

Since Libby first displayed his weather vanes in 1983, he has become more than just a fair regular; he's also a symbol of the street fair's spirit: fun, zany and just a tad offbeat.

"My work is unusual," says Libby, whose pieces sell for about $15 to $85 each. "There aren't too many people who make art from salvaged materials. . . . My art appeals on a visual level, but it's also whimsical since each one has a story."

His garage, he admits with embarrassment, has evolved into a disaster area with its piles of odds and ends - towel racks, porcelain handles from old teapots, abalone shells.

A former carpenter, the silver-haired man with a matching mustache spends hours in his garage transforming silly stories in his head into actual works of art. Consider "Herman Melville's Weathervane." With a brass fish attached to a turquoise piece of wood, Libby's legend says it was used by the famous novelist to assess wind direction during sea voyages. Or, how about the metal salmon that has "I've lost my passport, will you marry me?" embossed in French?

The humor and creativity present in Libby's weather vanes are also evident in the work of most artists at the fair, says Susan Harris, StreetFair's codirector.

"We stress craftsmanship, but we also look for items that are interesting, unusual and quirky," Harris says. "A lot of our craftspeople are artists at heart. This fair is an outlet for creative people."

Lauriellen Kuhns of West Seattle is another one of those artists. The owner of Dragonhaven Poterie, Kuhns has sold her wares at the fair for seven years. The potter, whose items sell for about $15 to $100, sells sculptures, tea sets, decorative tiles and other items with such pagan symbols as gargoyles, griffins or dragons.

"I love the mythology and lore behind these symbols," says Kuhns, 32, a Northwest native who has been dabbling in clay since she was 3. "And Medieval art is beautiful and very humorous. I want to bring it back to our society."

Besides the artists, the people who come every year also reflect the fair's flair for the wild, the weird, the out-of-this world kind of wacky.

"The (StreetFair) crowd has a special flavor," Libby says. "They're bizarre. You see guys with snakes around their necks, cross-dressers, people promoting political causes. You see a wide variety of people who make the StreetFair special and unique."

About 200,000 come every year to check out the hundreds of vendors who sell everything from paintings and jewelry to glass and wood objects.

The fair, now considered a Seattle tradition, was first held in 1969 amid the political turmoil over the Vietnam War. StreetFair became a gesture of peace between the hippies and the local merchants, Harris says.

"It was all about good will," says Harris, who was one of the hippies involved 27 years ago. "Even now, the fair is still about peace and community spirit."

IF YOU GO

The University District StreetFair, located on 20 blocks along University Way Northeast, between Northeast Campus Parkway and 50th Street Northeast, runs today from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission is free; parking is available at lots along Roosevelt Way Northeast for $4 a day, and at the University of Washington for $2.50 until 4:30 p.m. For more information, call 523-4272.