Buy Local: Fairmont's Arts & Antiques Marketplace

You know that phenomenon where once you start looking for something, you see it everywhere? (It’s called the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon if you’re interested.) It’s been happening to me with local creative businesses. My latest find is a good one, especially for anyone who’s in need of unique quality furniture, memorabilia, or local art.

Juliana Claudio runs the Arts & Antiques Marketplace, which is located in the Fairmont Mercantile in downtown Fairmont.

The building contains three floors of art and antiques and includes both vendor-run sections and consignment items. The depth and variety is impressive.

You’ll find furniture that’s been restored and given new life with chalk paint.

Carefully curated collections of vintage Pyrex and Fiestaware

Cleverly repurposed vintage items

Unique visual art, 3D pieces, and jewelry

A large collection of wedding and other fancy gowns

Some truly amazing quilted, upholstered furniture

And the occasional midcentury find.

On the third floor is a large bright gallery space that currently holds an exhibit curated by Jane Cardi, a local Morgantown artist who is also Juliana’s grandmother. This space overlooks the location of Fairmont’s Hometown Market, which I wrote about a few months ago, and is available for future exhibits.

In addition to curating this extensive collection, Juliana has several other projects in the works. She and her husband are renovating a nearby historic building, which will become their home in the coming months. Her sister company, Embellishments, offers event planning, event styling and staging using items from the Marketplace, as well as event makeup.

This is how it starts, friends. As I learned recently from a presentation about the amazing transformation of sleepy Richwood, WV, a few good businesses can lead the way to others. I’m excited to see what happens next in downtown Fairmont.

Asheville vs. Morgantown: Why the difference?

In case it wasn't clear from the last post, there are three stand-out reasons to go to Asheville (in any season, really): the food, the beer, and the art. Thanks to the clean water flowing down from the mountains, there are two dozen breweries located there now, from local places with fairly small operations to the new east coast facility that Sierra Nevada just opened outside of town. Their tap room was packed at 3:30 on a Friday. We wondered who exactly this crowd was. Locals? Tourists? Despite being huge and obviously commercial, the space was nicely done, with a large stage out back for music. 

Everywhere we went, there was evidence of artistic influence--clearly there are many, many creative types there. Above is a letterpress shop owned by a former Bostonian in the River Arts District, where lots of artists working in various media make and sell their wares.  A painter we met told us artists began relocating there several years back when rent got too high in other parts of the city.

I loved the illustrations on the posters  below, as well as the lovely stick art surrounding the door of the shop above.

Downtown Asheville has its own art scene, such as the art gallery located in the old Woolworth's building, known as  Woolworth Walk. To be featured there, artists must live within a certain geographic area (I think 25 miles from the city?) and are selected by jury.

I went on this trip with the idea that I would try to discern what it is that this town has that others don't (ahem, Morgantown). In the back of my mind was the question--can we do it too? Is there some recipe we can follow to create our own version of Asheville? By the time we got to West Asheville, I began to think no. I'd already seen so much, and this part of town only had more. Murals, organic ice cream shops, cute boutiques. A honey shop, for heaven's sake.

If ever a place made me want to own my own food establishment, it was Biscuit Head. I love biscuits in a huge way, and theirs are huge, delicious, flaky--divine really.

And what did they do to top off with these perfect biscuits the size of a cat's head? They made their own inventive jams and butters. There must have been at least 30 spreads to choose from, from classics like raspberry jam to unique blends like amaretto peach. Seriously. Heaven.

The level of creativity, of entrepreneurship--it so vastly exceeds what we have going on in Morgantown right now, that I'm not sure it's possible to create that type of scene here any time soon. 

Having made my way through Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel this month, I'm sensitive to how geography and both environmental and economic resources influence what happens in a place. Both Morgantown and Asheville are located in the mountains, have rivers running through and a fairly hilly topography, and are surrounded by relatively poor, rural areas. And of course the natural question is, why there and not here? What about that town allows artists and small independently-owned businesses to flourish while only a few seem to do really well here?

In addition to a larger population, one thing that Asheville has had both historically and in recent years is a serious influx of cash from investors and entrepreneurs. This is something that West Virginia has historically lacked, and that continues to this day. While there is quite a bit of growth and development happening in Morgantown right now, it doesn't have the same artistic flavor. Personally I think there's a real lack of appreciation for aesthetics in this town, and while we have more local restaurants and businesses than a lot of other West Virginia towns, only a few seem to genuinely thrive. And so in addition to a relative lack of resources, I think there may not be the interest here in creating such a place--at least not in the numbers needed to really make it happen.

Asheville's newspaper has done a series of articles about how the city has changed over the years. One interesting point they made is that while Asheville has experienced tremendous growth and is now a national tourist destination, it's become difficult for those holding the service jobs that cater to tourists to actually afford to live there. Or to make a real living on the wages they're paid. This is the kind of fact that brings me back to reality. Yes, that town looks amazing and inspiring and is so much fun to visit. But the homes are pricey and out of reach for many (not to mention we were told most good ones get swiped up before they even hit the market).

And with this, the lesson I've learned many times before rears its head again: every place has its positives and negatives. Not to mention the corresponding gem: Wherever you are, there you will be. (I try to keep this one in mind when I get off track thinking if only I lived __, my life would be so much more exciting!) As my friend said to me on our run this weekend, sometimes it seems really good to live in a place where everything isn't already perfect--because there your efforts can really make a difference. What do you think? Are we justifying here or speaking truth?

Networking: It's not an evil word.

Artist Colony in Jerusalem

Metal sculpture detail

When I was in Israel a couple years ago, my friend and I wandered through a sweet little artist colony tucked away in the old part of Jerusalem. We walked down a set of stairs and through an open gate of sorts onto a small, slanted street lined with shops and work-spaces for various types of craftspeople. The picture above hangs on my living room wall, and lately when I see it I wonder who the artists working there are (Are they Jewish? Muslim? Christian? Is it a place where religion doesn't matter?) and how they're faring with the recent violence. What was interesting about this place though was that it seemed very much like a community rather than a tourist area--like a place where artists had gathered to benefit from each other's creative energy. 

I've never made my living as an artist or lived in a particularly artsy community, but the happiest I've been in a work-like space in the ten years since I graduated from law school was when I worked in a letterpress shop in Louisiana with Kathryn Hunter of Blackbird Letterpress.

It was the oddest thing, getting to do that. I had just moved to Baton Rouge from Bozeman, Montana, and I'd decided I wanted to learn about letterpress printing (this from reading a piece in ReadyMade magazine about a letterpress shop called Yeehaw Industries in Knoxville, which sadly has since closed). So get this. I googled letterpress printing in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and up came the website of a girl who not only went to undergrad in Bozeman, but who also made art quilts. And I had just gotten into quilting. (The modern kind, like this.) Sometimes these coincidences astound me. So I emailed Kathryn, went to meet her, and we became fast friends. She taught me how to run her giant hand-fed printing press, and together we made invitations, cards, bird flags, and other things to sell at the Baton Rouge arts market, and we got her Etsy shop up and running. I learned so much and had such a great time. 

                            A letterpress card Kathryn and I designed together. Love this guy.

That didn't seem like networking to me. That was just pursuing something I found interesting. If you'd asked me several years ago what I thought about networking, I'd have thrown up a little in my mouth. That word had this slimy, schmoozing connotation for me. But lately I see it completely differently--it's about connecting with people you genuinely like, who are doing work that you find interesting and respect, and keeping in touch in some way. 

                                           red hand by Sarah Seldomridge

Even so,  when  my step-dad suggested I start using my network a few months ago, my first reaction was: I don't have a network. But slowly I started thinking about the people I know--even casually--who are doing things I think are really great. And since I started paying attention, I see that there are more of those than I thought. I really like the idea of consciously seeking out a network of inspirational people, and I think this can be useful in several different contexts. The most obvious is to use it to build connections to help you get a different job. But lately I've been working on building a creative network.

                                            hot foot by Sarah Seldomridge

My lovely friend Sarah Seldomridge, who has been drawing and painting for the past ten years in Boston, (and recently had a two lady show there at Voltage Coffee & Art with her friend Amanda Laurel Atkins) has been giving me feedback and encouragement on my work. We actually set up a phone date before her show to talk about hers. And we're finding that it really helps.

       still life with jif by Sarah Seldomridge

Another artist friend recently asked me if I could be her artsy accountability person, and we've been emailing each other once a week to say what we plan to work on for the week and report on how last week's things went. It's been so helpful!

So whether it's for work or for fun, let's start thinking about who our people are and try to connect with them. Who knows what might happen?