Crafty students sell their wares

May 7th, 2010 | By Christian Caminiti | Section: Arts

At the third annual Craft Fair, students were given the rare opportunity to not only put their artwork on display, but also put it up for sale. Homemade pieces ranging from the culinary—tiny cakes and doughnuts, to the sartorial—a chainlink vest, to the practical—haircuts, were all showcased in JRC 101 last Sunday for interested buyers.

Founded by Sidonie Straughn-Morse ’08 and Mallory Inman ’09 in 2007, the Craft Fair was born to provide an outlet for student creations and presentations. Spearheading the event this year was Christine Grummon ’11, who has been an active member in the Craft Fair since its inception and sought to maintain its original purpose.

Abby Caldwell '10 (Left) presents her ceramics wares as Kenji Yoshino '11 (Right) shows off his chain mail jewelery to potential customers. - Ben Brewer

“The goals of the fair are pretty simple. The fair was created mostly just to support the creative endeavors of students and also give them the opportunity to display and sell their work to the community,” Grummon said. “The craft fair is open to anyone who wants to sell stuff, with the idea that people are selling things they’ve made themselves, and students keep all the money they make.”

Joanna DeMars ’10 brought her line of recycled jewelry to the Craft Fair and sold individual pieces at $1 each—making more than $200 in profit. Likewise, Tad Boehmer ’12, Toby Cain ’12 and Nora Kostow ’13 sold their psychedelic marble paper for $1 per piece and earned $50.

“We joined the Craft Fair just to have fun and show our work, but we ended up making more money than we expected to,” Kostow said.

If nothing else, the Craft Fair proved that being an artist and making money are not mutually exclusive endeavors, at least for Grinnellians.