Artisan Crafts Show Moves from Bucks to Collegeville

COLLEGEVILLE PA – The Bucks County loss of a well-known display and sale of artisan goods has become Collegeville’s gain.

Historic Trappe, the non-profit that seeks “to preserve and share historic places, landscapes, and the heritage” of southeastern Pennsylvania, will benefit from proceeds of the Bedminster Traditional Artisan Show. It is scheduled for Saturday (Aug. 17) from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday (Aug. 18) from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., at Perkiomen Valley Middle School East, 5 Tammanund Cir., Collegeville.

The show celebrates “the enduring spirit of American craftsmanship,” Historic Trappe stated. It “brings together more than 40 of the country’s finest artisans,” who work with and deal in traditional Americana and folk art, the organization added.

Visitors to the show will have opportunities to meet and talk the artisans, and shop for handcrafted treasures. The list of offerings include furniture, paintings, quilts, hooked rugs, pottery, baskets, and woodcarvings.

The annual event has a lengthy and well-traveled history. “The show was originally held in the home of artists in Bedminster NJ,” the publication TAPinto Doylestown explained in a 2023 news article. It later was relocated to the Bucks County Vocational Technical School in Fairless Hills PA, and following that moved four years ago to what is now Delaware Valley University in Doylestown PA.

Historic Trappe museums part of the show

The weekend is the first chance for Historic Trappe to promote “this new partnership” with the show, it noted. The organization also acknowledged the centrally local value of the PVMS East site. The non-profit’s three frequently praised facilities – the Center for Pennsylvania German Studies, Henry Muhlenberg House, and The Speaker’s House – are “just a mile from the show.”

Admission tickets cost $10 per person, but by using an online coupon two adults can earn an additional ticket discount. Besides the show, tickets also include admission to and guided tours of the three Trappe properties.

According to Historic Trappe’s website:

• “The Center for Pennsylvania German Studies has five exhibition galleries featuring a wide variety of furniture, fraktur, textiles, and other objects, as well as a research library and archives;”
• The Henry Muhlenberg House “is a fully-furnished museum interpreting the families of Lutheran pastor Henry Muhlenberg and his son, Gen. Peter Muhlenberg;” and
• The Speaker’s House, “home of Frederick Muhlenberg, is an ongoing restoration project and the site of a Pennsylvania German kitchen garden.”

The Bedminster Traditional Artisan Show is sponsored by Historic Trappe; Early American Life Magazine; the Waterford Fair fall festival, conducted by the Waterford Foundation in Western Loudoun County VA; and Arader Farm in Collegeville.

For more information, contact show representatives using its online inquiry form.

Photo and graphic provided to Travels With The Post by the Bedminster Traditional Artisan Show