For most Western New Yorkers, the arrival of the Allentown Art Festival is above all a symbolic rite to mark the beginning of summer. The sweaty, sprawling affair headquartered in and around the streets of Allentown gives us a chance to pull our rumpled tank tops out of storage, slap on some SPF 45 and go hunting for the ideal landscape to hang above the couch or the perfect glass-blown wind chime to round out the collection. Or just the perfect people-watching perch and sugary chunk of fried dough.

But for the hundreds of artists — 448, to be exact — who have traveled to the festival, often from great distances, the 52-year-old institution is much more than a welcome harbinger of sunny skies. It’s a career and a way of life. And these days, when festgoers are more likely to stow their disposable income away than blow it on a photograph or mixed-media construction, traveling artists are holding an ever more tenuous grasp on their hard-earned livelihoods.

What’s often lost in the experience of Allentown is a sense of who its exhibitors really are as people, the places they hail from, and what they offer as artists and craftspeople. We randomly selected a sampling of the far-flung exhibitors from the list of more than 400 who have packed up their wares and high-tailed it to Buffalo to peddle their creations at what remains one of the largest outdoor art shows in America.

Gary Watrous, hat maker Freedom, Calif.

As an accomplished hat maker, Gary Watrous has been earning a respectable living for almost 30 years. With his son and fellow hat maker, Garth, Watrous brings a collection of some 300 hats to more than 40 art shows around the country each year.

“A love of leather started the whole thing,” Watrous said. “I did leather work in college, and it just kind of grew from belts and wallets and purses to becoming strictly hat makers in the early ’80s. That keeps us busy full time, absolutely.”

Watrous offers a selection of Western-themed cowboy hats for men and women, as well as hats specifically tailored for golfers with crushable material and ventilated crowns. Much of the father-son duo’s business comes from custom-fit jobs, which festivalgoers can order on the spot.

“Really nobody else makes anything like what we do,” Watrous said. “We know what hats are all about after all these years.”

This year marks about the 10th time Watrous has been an exhibitor at the Allentown Art Festival, which he called “one of the nicest shows we do, if the weather’s cooperative.”

“The layout is beautiful, people are in really good spirits,” he said. “It’s so well-organized that it’s a very easy, comfortable show to do.”

Elaine and Guiteau Lanoue, painter and mixed media artist Houston, Texas

Elaine and Guiteau Lanoue have been on the road for much of their adult lives. As prolific artists and constant travelers, it’s rare for the couple to spend more than a month at a time in their Houston home before they have to pick up and move on to the next festival. They came to Buffalo from another outdoor festival in Philadelphia last weekend.

Elaine, a painter, often works on new pieces while the pair is on the road. Many of her brightly colored works, which she calls “happy paintings,” are reminiscent of Tuscan landscapes, and others deal in what she called “Picasso-esque figurative work.”

As for Guiteau, who hails from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, his mixed-media work is a bit more studio-intensive. Guiteau makes his own paper out of cotton fibers, which he manipulates by hand into abstract shapes and applies onto canvases.

For Elaine, the Allentown Art Festival — while not the most lucrative show on the pair’s art circuit — attracts a certain sophisticated clientele.

“The thing I do appreciate about Buffalo is that they really know about art,” Elaine said. “Sometimes you go to a show, and they don’t know anything about art. I think they really do appreciate art. We’ve had some good shows there in spite of the economy.”

As for the life of a traveling artist?

“I think it’s good if you love what you do,” Elaine said. “I think it’s not for everybody because believe me, the expenses are very high for hotels and gas, and you do get worn out. But we love it, because you do get to see the country. You see different states, beautiful cities. To me, that’s the joy of it.”

Peyton Higgison, painter Brunswick, Maine

Peyton Higgison’s first trip to the Allentown Art Festival came more than 40 years ago, when his mother, a painter, was an exhibitor. By the time Higgison was in his early 20s and an artist in his own right, he chose Allentown as one of the first outdoor art shows of his artistic career. That was in 1976, and Higgison has been making frequent return trips to the festival ever since. He still remembers the first time someone bought a piece of his art.

“The first sale was like, weee! I’ma professional! I sold!” Higgison said. He won best-in-show awards for his work at Allentown in 1987 and ’89, and has often placed high in the festival’s juried rankings.

Higgison’s work has evolved from the psychedelic abstraction of his youth to a more subdued style that today includes whimsical landscapes and a series of pieces featuring such stock Higgison figures as wildly dancing women and stylized dogs. This accessible subject matter has proven profitable for Higgison, especially at the Allentown festival.

Like many of the artists at Allentown this week, Higgison has his worries about the economy. If there’s any time when accomplished artists like Higgison are likely to struggle, he said, this will be the year.

“When you’re really suffering for work, probably an expensive painting isn’t the first thing you’re running out and buying,” he said. Still, he holds out hope that this weekend’s festival will be different.

“It’s always been one of the biggest shows,” Higgison said. “They have a lot of artists and a lot of people coming to the shows, a lot of serious buyers. There’s a lot of people who are just enjoying the day, but there’s a lot of people who really are there to buy work, and that’s good for us.”

52nd annual Allentown Art Festival

The festival runs from 11 a. m. to 6 p. m. Saturday and Sunday. It takes place on Delaware Avenue between West Tupper and North streets; on Allen Street between Elmwood Avenue and Franklin Street; and on Franklin Street between Allen and Virginia streets. The concurrent Allen West Festival takes place along Allen and Wadsworth streets between Elmwood Avenue and Hudson Street.

The festival will host 448 exhibitors, while the adjoining Allen West festival will host 139. Exhibitors for the Allentown Art Festival hail from 28 states and Canada, and feature a wide array of artistic mediums, including jewelry, creative crafts, clay, glass, mixed media, photography, sculpture, drawing and graphic and oil, acrylic and watercolor painting.

For more information about the festival, call 881-4269, visit

www.allentownartfestival.com

, or pick up a festival program at the Allentown Village Society offices at 435 Delaware Ave.