– By MARY RUOFF

Special to the Maine Sunday Telegram

Summer festivals evoke memories of crowd-pleasing, tried-and-true fun — food and craft stands, parades and pageants, bed and foot races, fireworks, musicians performing at the town green or park. But what about an event that puts a wacky, wickedly fun twist on all of that?

Perhaps you’re hoping to catch a music or arts festival this summer. In Maine, they often offer a chance to browse or buy works by nationally acclaimed artists and artisans who make their home here. But what about arts festivals that stretch on for weeks, inviting the public to observe sculptors as they carve public works of art, or giving festival goers the chance to take part in the creative process through workshops?

Down East Maine’s summer festival lineup offers this enticing mix of the traditional and the unique, even offbeat. It includes the Machias Wild Blueberry Festival, which has been drawing large crowds for decades, as well as the Eastport Pirate Festival, which is just several years old but growing in popularity and scope.

While some of the region’s festivals are quite different, they all have something in common: they’re a great way to experience and learn about the communities that put them on, showcasing their natural beauty and resources, history, architecture, and small town charm.

Every weekend from late July through early September, you’ll find festivals and arts events taking place somewhere in Hancock and Washington counties. Here’s my list of favorites (all run at least two days), but others came close to making the cut. For a larger list of fairs and festivals Down East check out the Maine Office of Tourism’s web site, www.visitmaine.com (from the home page click on “Events,” then search “Fairs & Festivals” in the “Downeast & Acadia” region).

Grand Lake Stream Folk Art Festival, July 30 to 31: More than 50 folk artists and artisans from Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and New Brunswick will have displays at the 17th annual festival, but quilters and canoe-makers are the big draws, as are the musicians.

The festival is held west of Calais in tiny Grand Lake Stream, which anchors a vast, remote watershed of lakes and flowages that has been a fishing mecca for centuries. Touted as one of the “premier” folk art festivals in New England, the event won a Maine governor’s tourism award in 2006.

It’s held on a large ball field in the village center, which runs along a stream connecting West Grand and Big lakes. Displays and presentations on the region’s culture and history spotlight its past as a logging and tanning center as well as the recreational fishing that continues to thrive here. Visitors can watch craft persons make canoe paddles, bamboo fly rods, and square-end canoes built to withstand the local waters’ strong winds.

Many of the antique and modern quilts on display are for sale; editors from Quilters World magazine will be on hand. Trumpeters, fiddlers and guitarists from Maine and New Brunswick will take to the stage. The Mark Tipton Band, a favorite at past festivals, returns this year. The marquee act is the popular Maine singer songwriter David Mallett, who performs at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. The evening show is new to the festival this year; tickets are $15 in addition to the festival entrance fee of $5 for one day and $8 for two. For more information: www.grandlakestreamfolkartfestival.com.

Schoodic Arts Festival, Aug. 1 to Aug. 14: Now in its 12th year, this two-week event taps the Schoodic Peninsula’s wellspring of artistic talent and community spirit.

The Hancock County land mass across Frenchman Bay from Bar Harbor is best known for the Schoodic section of Acadia National Park, where visitors come to marvel at the crashing surf and panoramic coastal views. But it’s also home to an impressive number of artists with homestead or storefront galleries, as well as Schoodic Arts for All, the nonprofit organization that sponsors the festival and has spawned some of the acts that will perform.

What sets this event apart is that it also includes workshops — a whopping 80 in total.

Perhaps even more impressive is the near-mindboggling variety. Embracing “art” in a delightfully broad and collaborative way, workshop offerings include hula, swing and yoga “movement” classes; stone sculpting; spot-welding; visual arts like painting, photography and multimedia; fencing; mask theater; cooking classes, from wood-fired baking to catering art; fiber arts; jewelry making; experimental iPhone filmmaking; even sailing and boat making — and the list goes on.

The performances are also diverse and eclectic. Some examples: children’s book readings, Appalachian string and country music, a comedy show that incorporates masks and “physical” theater, Bangor’s Robinson Ballet, Brooklin’s Scott Cleveland Trio, original stories and songs about furry “Fofers” on a “secret” Maine island, and the Sheep Island Rovers, who get folks contra dancing on the festival’s last Saturday night.

Free lunchtime performances are held at a tent in Prospect Harbor. Evening performances are at the arts organization’s historic Hammond Hall in downtown Winter Harbor are $5. The festival kicks off with a fundraising auction and concludes with a show featuring art and performances by workshop participants.

Workshop fees, times and length vary (from one-time classes to those held daily for a week or over several days). Early registration is encouraged, but slots are usually open up until and during the festival. For more information: www.schoodicarts.org (click on festival links).

Schoodic International Sculpture Symposium, Aug. 2 to Sept. 14. First held in 2007, this biennial event bring sculptors from around the world (at least one Maine artist is always included) to the Schoodic Peninsula.

Over six weeks, the six participating artists will each carve a large granite sculpture for a Down East community (the organization’s website has a driving tour of the public artworks created at the 2007 and 2009 symposiums).

Visitors can watch and chat with the sculptors as they drill and chisel huge pieces of Maine granite at Fisher Field on Route 186 in Prospect Harbor. Bring the kids — they love to collect the granite chips.

A welcome tent will have displays on the symposium, Maine granite, the sculpture process and this year’s participants. Consider coming two or three times to watch the works take shape –that’s what the peninsula’s year-round and summer residents like to do (note: the sculptors don’t all start on the first day).

You can plan trips to coincide with the Winter Harbor Lobster Festival on Aug. 13 (www.acadia-schoodic.org/lobsterfestival) or Schoodic Arts Festival in the first half of August (symposium sculptors take part in a panel discussion on Wednesday evening, Aug. 10, as part of that event).

Of course, you can’t come to the peninsula a few times in a matter of weeks without making time to hike, bike or enjoy the scenic waterfront drive at the Schoodic section of Acadia National Park, where past symposiums were held. For more information: www.schoodicsculpture.org.

Machias Wild Blueberry Festival, Aug. 19 to 21 This festival, in its 36th year, is all about tradition and old-fashioned fun. But please note the “wild” in the title — Maine is famous for its wild blueberries, which grow in boulder-strewn coastal barrens like those lining sections of U.S. Route 1 as it nears the Washington County shire town.

But the festival, which draws 15,000 visitors, does have a wild side — how else can you describe a blueberry pie eating contest? One of the festival’s biggest draws, it’s held Saturday at 11 a.m. on the steps of the town’s landmark Centre Street Congregational Church, which hosts the festival.

Participants in the four age categories are chosen by lottery; enter that morning between 8 and 10 a.m. Beatles music is the theme of this year’s musical comedy, “Blueberry Fields Forever,” held nightly at the church Aug. 16-20. Jazz and ukulele bands also perform at the festival, which includes a road race, cooking and banner contests, and a children’s activity area. A children’s parade kicks off the festival at 6 p.m. Friday, followed by a puppet show at the University of Maine at Machias.

Everyone from toddlers to town elders gets costumed up for Saturday night’s rollicking Black Fly Ball at the Machias Valley Grange Hall. The party spills across the street to Bad Little Falls Park on the Machias River. For more information: www.machiasblueberry.com.

Eastport Pirate Festival, Sept. 9 to 11 Fireworks aren’t all that will light up the night at the sixth annual festival on the second weekend in September. Sparks will fly — literally — as Pirates of the Dark Rose “battle” with real cutlasses on the streets and along the piers of this historic island city way Down East.

This pirate-theme performance troupe from Rockport stages reenactments and otherwise entertains throughout the event, which started as an add-on to the Eastport Salmon Festival (now held over Labor Day weekend) but has since eclipsed it. Last year’s Pirate Festival drew more than 10,000 visitors downtown, where the dramatic water views extend to Canada’s Campobello Island and whales are often spotted from the piers because the harbor is so deep.

The 50-plus events include a Friday night pirate ball, Saturday afternoon pirate-theme bed race and Saturday night fireworks. On Sunday there’s an international lobster boat race (new last year) and an antique car, motorcycle and boat show (like the fireworks, new this year).

Throughout the festival, local restaurants and businesses will offer specials and host their own events, like the Shipwreck Party on Saturday night at the Pickled Herring. This spacious, stylish and well-reviewed restaurant is just one of a number of businesses, many of them art galleries, that have opened in restored downtown storefront in recent years.

There’s no admission charge for the festival and most events are free. The city is opening a tenting area for the event; lodging information was to be added to the festival’s website.

Note: A prelude event takes place Sept. 3, when Eastporters stage a “Pirate Invasion” by air and sea of Lubec, just a mile away by boat but about 40 miles by car. The Cobscook Bay town holds its own events that day, including a parade, bed race, children’s carnival, and tug of war between Eastporters and Lubecers. For more information: www.eastportpiratefestival.com.

Mary Ruoff is a free-lance writer in Belfast. Her work for Fodor’s travel guides includes writing the “Way Down East” chapter of “Maine Coast.”