Calico Makers Market supports artists and inspires creativity

Nestled within Calico Studio's 10 acres of land off Smith Level Road lies Calico Makers Market, an intimate outdoor market brimming with the soft chatter of local artists and participants, hums of food trucks and strums from live guitars. 

The market has been hosted semiannually every last weekend of April and second weekend of October since 2021. 

This month, the market took place from Oct. 7-8 with 27 local artists of various art mediums, three food trucks and five live musical performances over the course of the weekend. An art activity booth offered hands-on experience for event-goers to learn different art techniques such as creating textured clay tiles, pinch pots and paper craft owls.

Heather Washburn, founder of architecture design firm Calico Studio,  started the Makers Market during the pandemic to motivate artists to create art and sell it in an outdoor space. 

Now, the market has more opportunities for attendees and vendors to stroll, eat, listen to music and discover their own artistic abilities.

She said that the market provides free art activities because it's important to her that people understand art.

“There's not many times that you get to see how abstract thought works," she said. "A lot of folks, that's scary to them, because it's nonlinear. And this is all approachable."

Washburn said the process of getting the market ready is a "grassroots effort." Yard signs are put up, donated art supplies are used at the craft table, her neighbors host overflow parking and her children pass snacks to vendors.  She also credited Calico Studio public relations and events manager Katherine Occhipinti as her "right hand" during the event.

To spread word of the market, Washburn used her connections in Durham, Chatham and Orange counties. Her children also helped spread the word in local schools.

This was printmaker Cecelia Murray’s first time at the market. As a frequent vendor at Durham’s Craft Market, she said she noticed the Calico Makers Market's different atmosphere and close-knit camaraderie between artists. 

"Sometimes you go — nobody knows anybody," Murray said. "But, there are people here that I've worked with before, and everybody seems very nice."

Calico Creates, a subsidiary of Calico Studio, repurposes scrap fabric into accessories, according to Sharece Ramos, an interior designer for Calico Studio. Their products are dyed in house with natural ingredients planted from the studio’s garden, located in the same acreage where the market was hosted. 

She said that the market allows Calico Creates to gauge what people are interested in.

Friends Holly Roper, Allison Thompson and Anna Kim regularly enjoy perusing small markets and holding group crafting nights. Roper learned about the Makers Market from seeing their signs on her commute down Smith Level Road and posts on Facebook and invited her friends to join. 

The three noted how friendly the artists were and the diversity of artistic mediums at the market. 

Thompson said she remembered a printmaker from last year and wanted to see them again this year. 

Kim said that all three enjoy walking around and looking at art. She said she would take note of the things her friends took interest in at the October market to help with Christmas shopping.

Exploring the market inspires the friend group’s own crafting, Roper said. 

“You're seeing all these people at different stages of crafting and their experience and you're like, ‘Oh, that's really cool, maybe I should try to do that too,’” she said.

The Calico Makers Market started as a venue for artists to sell their work and maintain community during lockdown, and has grown to an organized art weekend where visitors not only buy work, but chat with artists and create art themselves.

"More people are starting to come out because we're becoming more known, so that's always great," Ramos said. "The foot traffic expansion has been awesome."

@dailytarheel | lifestyle@dailytarheel.com