623 North 2nd Street Philadelphia, PA 19123 (215) 238-1557 Open Tue-Sat 11am-7pm; Sun 12pm-6pm
We have a fun Giveaway going on now through Tuesday, March 1st! Enter to Win $100 to Spend at our May 7th + 8th Art Star Craft Bazaar OR Win $100 off your ASCB Vendor Booth Fee if you are accepted. There are 5 different ways to enter and each one gets you extra entries. GO HERE TO ENTER
CHECK OUT ALL THE WORK HERE
We are so pumped to announce our next exhibition with the incredibly talented Faryn Davis of Fernworks. We have been carrying her line of jewelry at Art Star for years now (you can see it here), but what you might not know is that Faryn also creates dreamy painted landscapes to adorn your walls! I am in complete awe of the 3 dimensional worlds that she creates with her unique technique of layering painted resin.
Her very first solo show at Art Star will features a brand new collection of resin paintings. The show is titled “After the Flood” and will be up from March 19th – May 15th. We will be hosting an opening reception on Saturday, March 19th, from 6-8pm. Come get a first look at the work and share a drink or two with us!
Faryn Davis creates mixed media paintings and a line of jewelry, under the name Fernworks, which combines hand painted scenes and found natural ephemera into layers of polished resin. Each piece is painted with toothpicks and tiny brushes, embedded in multiple layers of resin, then cut and polished into delicate, dreamlike 3-D landscapes populated by plants, birds, bears, foxes and other woodland creatures.
Growing up in Waynesville, N.C, the artist spent many afternoons gathering and collecting items on the family farm. She’d pick up and preserve bird nests, feathers, interesting clumps of dirt, moss, leaves, bones, fur, twigs, bugs, and other tiny things. Her paintings and line of jewelry reflect this lifelong passion and tradition.
Her first solo exhibition at Art Star will include a new body of resin paintings. The artist states, “These new resin paintings reflect a lifelong exploration of the natural world, the land, and how each tiny self finds its place in it all. After the Flood is an allegory of the land and its diverse beings emerging after a metaphorical flood or shift. Many of these pieces quietly reflect restoration and new beginnings; how new land rises to meet us after old things have been washed away.”
Faryn Davis studied at North Carolina School of the Arts, in France, Italy, and Nepal, and received a BFA degree in sculpture at the University of North Carolina at Asheville in 2000. You can find her work in stores and galleries throughout the US and abroad, as well as at various art and craft shows like the Art Star Craft Bazaar in Philly, The Renegade Craft Fairs in Chicago, Brooklyn, Austin, San Francisco and Los Angeles, The Urban Craft Uprising in Seattle, and many others. She now lives in Asheville, NC with her husband Eli and their 6 year old son Milo Gray after an 8 year hiatus in the Pacific Norweast. She creates art full time in a modified 8’x8’ garden hut in her backyard.
Get a sneak peek at her studio and process here
go visit her website here
We are so excited to announce the dates for our 13th Annual (whoa!) Spring Art Star Craft Bazaar at The Great Plaza at Penn’s Landing. The show is set for Mother’s Day Weekend again – May 7th + 8th. We are so in love with this year’s show logo by the lovely and talented Julianna Swaney. I think this chick stole my look though. I like to rock this top knot hair style, which I call my “power bun” or the “executive”. It makes me feel more like the bad-ass boss lady that I want to be and maybe sometimes am. However, I wish I was dressed by birds each morning and surrounded by flowers. That, not so much. More like covered in cat hair and surrounded by tumble furs. Anyway….
Right now we are accepting Vendor Applications, so if you make awesome stuff, you should apply! We are really looking for anything and everything, as long as it is handmade by you! Of course, we are open to small product lines (like prints, cards, etc) that were designed by you, but you had them produced elsewhere. Make sure to send us your very best photos, b/c that is how we will be judging your work! We like to include a little bit of everything, so the show is balanced and offers something for everyone. If you are just starting out and the vendor fee seems a little high for you, you can always apply to share with another maker friend. If you don’t have a friend to share a spot with but still would like to split the costs, we are willing to try to pair you up with someone. Just mention it on the app. This snow weekend is a good time to bunker down and apply! I can’t wait for spring and a fun, warm, hopefully SUNNY, non-rainy weekend on the waterfront! It’s just around the corner….
We will be hosting an in-store Pop Up with 4 of our local Art artists: Le Puppet Regime, Wild Hart Paper Co, Stanley Chester & Albert, and West Oak Design. These ladies will each be setting up mini shops in our back gallery space from January 23rd – March 13th. This is an excellent chance to shop each artists’ full collection of goods all in one place!
These mini shops will be set up by each individual artist, so you can expect a branded display that reflects each of their personal aesthetics. This gives us an oppurtunity to really spotlight these 4 customer favorites!
Le Puppet Regime: Stained Glass Marionettes and Jewelry
Wild Hart Paper Co: Stationary, Wrapping Paper, Prints and Home Goods
Stanley Chester & Albert: Pottery
West Oak Design: Clothing, Bags, Jewelry, and Home Goods
We will be hosting an opening reception to debut the Pop Ups on January 23rd from 5-8pm. Stop by to mingle with the artists, enjoy light refreshments and get first dibs on new products and designs!
Be sure to keep checking back in, as each artist will be restocking as their items sell!
Hi there! This is Megan, Co-Owner of Art Star. We’ve got so many great gifts to give this holiday season.You can shop for everyone on your list without breaking the bank. All of these items are quality, made in the USA goods that you won’t find in a big box store. You will feel good giving these thoughtful, unique gifts that support US independent artists, as well as our small business! So without further ado, here are my favorite gifts this season that are all $25 and under! (pssst, there is still time to buy online, as long as you live within the US! All our items ship out Priority 2-3 day and we ship out the day after you order!)
“Keep Going” digital print by Mai Autumn, 8×10″, $20, BUY NOW
I am impressed with anyone who can work in watercolors, b/c I am terrible at it. Mai Autum is a master and her delicate floral prints are some of my favorites in the shop. I love this simple thought – “Keep Going”. It is important daily rememinder and a lovely gift for any friend of family member.
Leather Star Key Rings by Mason Made, $15 each BUY NOW
Both guys and gals will love these simple leather key rings. Features a little snap on the end so you can hook it on your belt buckle or on a bag. I really love the contrasting thread detailing and I’m a sucker for anything with a star on it.
Bitch Please Bowl by Stanley Chester and Albert, $20 BUY NOW
I’m sorry to say, but this phrase runs through my head often. Get it for one of your snarkier friends. They can use it as a jewelry dish or for dips or a scoop of ice cream. Or they can just use it as a catch all. A daily reminder not to take things too seriously.
Made by Unicorns Woven Labels by Sublime Stitching, $4.50 BUY NOW
These are great for for all the makers in your life. Not to mention it is by one of my favorite lady crafters of all times – Miss Jenny Hart! Each pack includes 4 sew in labels.
Love Ornament by Mason Made, $10 BUY NOW
These babies have been wildly popular in our shop this season. You can really get one for any Philadelphian and we’ll dig it. Makes a great stocking stuffer, gift for a co-worker, or tie it to the top of a wrapped gift as a nice little extra something!
Felt Crowns by Opposite of Far, $24 BUY NOW
For the litte king or queen in your life! I love all products by Opposite of Far b/c they encourage imaginative play and are so very well made. These fit kiddos aged 3-5.
Sapele Turner by E&D Goods, $25 BUY NOW
Lovingly handmade from Sapele wood. These turners would be great for any aspiring chefs or home cooks in your life.
2016 Wall Calendar by Laura George, $25 BUY NOW
Laura George is one of my most favorite illustrators. I love the humor that she imbues into her work. She is my kind of lady! This calendar basically gets you 12 awesome pieces of art b/c it is designed so you can cut them out and frame each one when the year is through.
Enamel Pins by Yardsale Press, $8 each BUY NOW
I am so happy enamel pins are making a come back and equally as excited to see Yardsale Press come out with a line. Choose from a bunch of designs!
Package of 8 Recipe Cards by Wild Hart Paper Co., $12 BUY NOW
I love all of Wild Hart’s designs and these recipe cards are no exception. I think it would be really cute to fill each one out with 8 of your own signature recipes and give to a friend that just got married or bought a new house. Those personal touches are the best this time of year.
Bottle Openers by Woodshop Dropout $25 BUY NOW
These bottle openers work amazingly well. There is a magnet on each side – one to catch your bottle cap and another to attach to your fridge. I have gotten these for every dude in my life and they all love them. Great gift for dad or the bros. Of course, ladies would like this too. But guys are so hard to shop for!!
And that ends my first Gift Guide of the Season. I’ll try to post a few more before the holidays. Go here to shop the full range of products that we offer. Happy Holidays!
xo,
Megan
Hello there! I am an illustrator & soft sculpture maker residing in Baltimore, Maryland. I have a strange fascination with hairless kittens, tea, & otherworldly splendor. I am a collector of old, weathered textiles, driftwood scraps, & anything with a story that’s since been neglected.
As a young child I was most often found hunched in the branches of the old apple tree in my backyard illustrating & writing books. Not much has changed since then. As a fresh graduate from Maryland Institute College of Art with my BFA I’m slowly starting to carve away my artistic path.
I love working in a variety of mediums however my primary mediums include ballpoint pen & acrylic paint for my 2D illustrations. For my sculptural work I use polymer clay glazed with acrylic paint and fibers for their soft bodies. Being a maker allows for a very magical opportunity to inject art into peoples everyday lives with it being serendipitous and affordable. This is the reason why I delight so much in making my strange little, dusty creatures. They look as if they have arrived on a ship from a different world, a charming nostalgic treasure hidden on a book self end or crevice of someone’s sacred space. I delight in creating these odd treasures that people tend to double take to fully soak in.
All I ever hope to achieve with my works is to inspire people & get them out of their heads to reconnect with the pure wonder of imagination and the feeling of being 5 years old again, uninhibited by worry. I use nature as a primary muse to my works as well as my love for soaking in different people essences and injecting them into my characters.
I currently sell work in local artisan shop Strongbox and at scattered pop up markets around Baltimore. I enjoy doing commissions for people. I find a lot of pleasure in getting told what to create from other people’s worlds and hopefully superseding their expectations. The unexpected collaboration between the artist and the client is oddly beautiful to me. After the chaos of the holidays are over I will be helping illustrate a book for a dear friend which I’m very excited to dig into and have high hopes for.
This is my first time vending at the Art Star Craft Bazaar and I could not be more excited. Please take a gander at booth #36. I look forward to meeting all of you!
Visit Indigo Marie Illustration on her website
My name is Scott Staats and I am a glass artist. I’ve been blowing glass for five years but I have spent whole my life creating art. I have always loved to create things and make art working with many different mediums, but once I started working with glass I knew I found the one for me. Glass instantly fascinated me, it can be used in so many ways to create nearly any shape and color, yet you can never touch it with your hands while working with it.
When I’m in the studio working with the glass it starts out as a liquid, at 2000 degrees fahrenheit, with the viscosity of honey and is gathered on the end of a metal blowpipe. All of the glass starts clear and then the color is added while it is still hot. Once the glass is colored it gets blown up and manipulated using a variety of traditional tools. When the piece is finished it placed in an annealer where it can cool to room temperature over a time span of 24 hours.
I am inspired to create by so many things I see around me. I have always been drawn to the random natural patterns and colors of nature and the scale and lines of urban cities. Drawing upon these inspirations I like to incorporate wood and steel into some of my work.
I like making art that people will enjoy, give as gifts and decorate their homes with. My products include seasonal decor, functional glass, installation art and custom lighting. I hope that my work brings joy to people’s lives like so many other artists work has brought to mine.
This will be my first year as a vendor at the Art Star Craft Bazaar and I am very excited. Please visit my website at www.ScottStaatsGlass.com and please visit me at corner booth #46. Thank you.
Hello! My name is Lital. I’m a print designer and illustrator. I was born and raised in Israel. As a kid, I used to spend time at my dad’s studio (he is a graphic designer). I was always drawn to the art books, catalogs and design magazines that he had in his library. He had exciting things in his studio, like a Pantone fan and boxes filled with colors, paints and different kinds of papers; it was like heaven for me. I used to sit there all day during summer break and draw with him. This is where my love for painting came from. Watching my dad really inspired me to have a design studio when I grow up and that’s exactly what happened.
My trip to India before college inspired me to study textile design and major in print. I was looking to study something creative that contains a little bit of everything – art, fashion, graphic design and pattern design. I wanted to keep painting, but put the skill into something more practical and this is how I found textile design. After graduating, I had two different options. I got accepted to an internship at DVF in NYC but was also offered a job at the Free People studio in Philadelphia. I chose Philly and this is how I came to the USA. I worked at the FP studio for two years, creating original artworks and patterns.
These days I work from my studio, collaborating with different brands and working as a print/cad designer. I also work on my own line of clothing that will be launched in spring 2016.
My work is inspired from the organic motif of nature, animals and different cultural patterns from around the world.
My favorite mediums to work with are ink and watercolors and I paint all of my patterns and artworks by hand, with an intuitive and tactile approach. I love it when colors look happy and vibrant and I always make sure to have this in my work. I usually start from collecting some inspiration according to the subject I’m exploring. After I have a good amount of reference (pictures, prints, fabric swatches) I start to paint. I also work with books and nature magazines, when I paint animals, especially birds!
Hope to see you at the Fall Art Star Craft Bazaar, I will be selling holiday goods, wall art prints, greeting cards and more! Come say hi!
and Visit Lital Gold’s Website year round!
Ministry of Culture is the clothing and accessories label I created for myself while I was attending school at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. I was living in Brooklyn at the time and like most other people my age, I was trying to find ways to make extra cash to support the cost of rent in the city. I stumbled across this cute little handmade clothing store in my neighborhood called Better Than Jam and convinced the owner Karin Persan to take me on as an artist. I had been experimenting with different sewing, dyeing and printing techniques for years but had never had an outlet to sell my line before; it was a big jumping off point for my business.
I grew up sewing my own clothes and making jewelry but it wasn’t until my brother found an ad in the gas station, in our town of West Burke, Vermont, that I ever considered it as a potential profession. Tara Lynn Bridal was looking for interns interested in learning all aspects of fashion design. I started working for Tara and learned everything from production sewing, to embroidery, applique and pattern making. She encouraged me to apply to the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC and go back to school. I stayed in New York for 6 years working in different areas of the fashion world; as a pattern- maker, sample maker, sewing teacher, with private clients, in textile shops. I collected a wealth of knowledge as well as a mountain of fabric. Almost every company I worked for had some sort of textile “waste” which I always asked to keep. All of which I used to inspire my own clothing designs. Finding ways to use what I had, pushed me to be more creative. I like to see and feel the fabrics, watch how it drapes and then think of how each piece would be best suited in a garment.
In addition to collecting fashion industry off-casts, I have spent a lot of time traveling to other countries, collecting fabric, design ideas and learning about traditional craft. Through the years I have done my best to combine my love of travel with my desire to create unique and functional clothing designs. I find my inspiration from the places I have been and the people living there. Style varies from country to country. I like to study the history of each country’s folk art designs and traditional costumes. Color, pattern, and design all have different meaning depending on where in the world you are at and I try to find interesting, modern ways to implement them into my designs. I have studied weaving in Chile and Guatemala, batik in Indonesia and Thailand, natural dying in Laos, lace making in Spain, as well as quilting in America. Essentially if there is a textile related art from out there in the world, it is my goal to get there and learn how it is done.
The idea behind my label Ministry of Culture is to tell a story through fashion, by introducing people to various countries folk art traditions, and creating unique, quality pieces to minimize consumption. I think that it is important to have a sense of global consciousness and do my best to develop that type of awareness through my designs..
I do my work from my studio (aka the barn behind my parents house) in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. I hand draft all my patterns, cut, and sew everything myself. All of my prints are from hand-carved linoleum blocks, and are individually stamped. After I returned from a trip to Turkey last year and started experimenting with marbled silk. I have really enjoyed the individuality of the designs that have come out of it and hope to continue using that technique to print some unique sweatshirt material through this winter. I am headed on a trip through the “Stans” to Mongolia next summer and looking forward to finding inspiration and textiles along the way.
Visit Brianna and her clothing line, Ministry of Culture, at our upcoming Art Star Craft Bazaar!
Hello Art Starlets and craft connoisseurs! I’m Molly Moran, creator of Snarky Scouts. I’m pretty new to the craft vendor world, and this will be my first year at Art Star Craft Bazaar in Philadelphia. Brace yourselves!
Snarky Scouts is my reinvention of actual vintage Girl Scout and Boy Scout badges into funny, usually inappropriate merit badges for adults. These take the form of 5×7″ letterpress prints and felt brooches or ornaments.
The Girl Scouts of America discontinued this style of merit badge a few years ago and they use a new merit badge system now. That means I can find lots of these old badges on eBay. I do the letterpress myself at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center’s letterpress studio in Silver Spring, MD. I hand-sew and hand-embroider the felt items.
I started this project last year when I was looking online for old badges that I thought I might use to decorate a zip-wallet. As I looked through several old Girl Scout badges on eBay, I couldn’t always tell what the badges represented, and I found myself making up silly names for them. The one I remember most clearly is the badge for Reptiles and Amphibians – to me, it looked like a turtle walking a high wire. So I made a badge for “Turtle Circus Arts.”
Once I realized that this could be a viable project with items to sell, I applied to a large juried craft show in DC, and funded my startup costs with a Kickstarter campaign. I didn’t know what to expect, but I found that people loved the badges and I sold out of nearly all my designs. So this year, armed with a better sense of what people like, I’ve added about two dozen new designs to my repertoire and a couple new craft fairs to my calendar – including ASCB in Philly!
While the art technique in my work is letterpress and needlework, the most expressive aspect is the humor I use. It’s with humor – this less tangible, less material aspect of the work – that I experiment and invent. My ideas are inspired by the imagery of the actual badges, so there’s a constraint inherent in the process that is challenging and fun. I’ve recently had ideas for four new designs, which will debut at ASCB in November. I’m most excited about introducing the merit badges for “Road Rage” and “Day Drinking.”
I think part of the pleasure of reading these badges is realizing the extent of the departure from the original meaning of the badge. The history is important. So I use only real scouting badges, and I research each one before incorporating it in my designs. With every item I include a little card with information about the original use of the badge.
My absolute favorite part of this project is having a booth at a fair, because people laugh at my items. We’re not talking a polite little giggle, we’re talking completely busting up. It’s awesome: it’s an entire day of getting to watch my work make people laugh. It’s a joy and a gift and it inspires me to keep at it. So come by my booth on November 7th or 8th – I promise you’ll find something that makes you smile.
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