Artists share love of Earth and crafts
COLUMBIA — A group of online friends will be making their crafts debut at Columbia's Earth Day Festival on Sunday.
Etsy.com is a Web site that allows people to buy and sell handmade and vintage items and crafting supplies. The site has street teams where
members can form mini-organizations based on location, type of craft or
other interests. The teams network, help with promotion and share
advice and skills.
"It's kind of another social network," said Lisa Bartlett, a member of one of the Etsy.com groups. "There's so many social networks
online. This is funny because this is like an
online situation that forms a social network of people who actually
meet in person."
Columbia gained a street team of its own last summer. Kansas City and
St. Louis already had established groups, but there was nothing for
mid-Missouri.
It started with three friends: Laura Pugh, Jolene Kington and Beth Costello. The three had been
doing art shows together and selling on Etsy.com. They decided that
Columbia needed a team of its own and founded the group. The
requirements are simple: be on Etsy.com and live in mid-Missouri. The group has 32 members.
Seven members of the Missouri Etsy-Centrics will be exhibiting at the
Columbia Earth Day Festival this Sunday. Gail Barnickol, Kristi Mott,
Laura Pugh, Jolene Kington, Beth Costello, Jenn Hynes will be exhibiting as a group, while Lisa Bartlett has a separate exhibit.
"The goal of the group is to support each other and promote Etsy and
each other's shops," Pugh said. "This (group fair) was a goal for 2009
to actually do things together."
This will be the first time the group is exhibiting together, and the setting fits the artists since many of them try to practice sustainable art.
Kington tries to recycle and "upcycle" goods as much as she can. It's evident in the things she makes: baby toys from organic cotton,
purses and clothing from old felted sweaters.
"I hate wasting anything. I even save itsy-bitsy pieces of yarn so that birds can use them for their nests," Kington said.
Since she started making toys for her own kids, she has become much more safety conscious.
"If your baby is going to be teething on something, it just makes more
sense to have something that doesn't have a bunch of chemicals or is
chemicallybased, like plastics," Kington said.
Mott's youngest son had skin issues when he was little, but she
couldn't find anything that wouldn't make him break out. After looking
for natural products, she decided to make her own. With some research and
experimenting, she came up with a viable product in natural soaps. Now she sells to
friends, families and people all over the world.
"Etsy has allowed me to share my love for soaping to literally the
world from the convenience of my home," Mott said. "I have shipped to
Australia, China, Israel, Canada. It's like a little geography lesson
every time I ship something out."
Even though her products aren't "reusable," Mott is always looking for
ways to keep her products Earth-friendly. She searches for Earth-friendly harvesting methods for her natural ingredients and uses
recycled paper for packaging.
"I know I would rather have something someone made with their two bare
hands than something mass produced and full of chemicals that are so
not good for you — and everyone on Etsy including the street team
members understands that notion," Mott said.
Bartlett has had extensive experience selling in both
stores and online. Co-owner of the now closed Spare Parts
Gallery, she also has exhibits downtown and has a studio at the Orr
Street complex. Now she's making plans to open a new gallery on Walnut
Street with fellow artist Jessie Lawson. She hopes to have members of the Etsy team
exhibit there.
Things from the past, such as skeleton keys, vintage jewelry and old watch parts are reused in Bartlett's mixed media art.
"This is a throw-away society so things today might not have the same
beauty of things of the past," Bartlett said. "I see a beauty in things
that are obsolete."
The group members hope to provide support for each other at their first group event.
"I hope that as we grow as a team we will be able to promote each other, our Etsy shops, and our businesses in a confident manner," Mott said. "It will be interesting to see how everyone works together as a team, yet promotes their own products."
The Earth Day festival will feature about 250 booths. Nonprofit
organizations, artisans and businesses will be exhibiting.
"We're providing an event that provides sustainable education, access
to a volunteer fair and especially the opportunity for the community to
be able to sample the diversity of our community," said Mark Haim,
co-coordinator of Columbia's Earth Day Festival street fair.