(File photo/northeastNOW staff)

By Ben Tompkins

Melfort Arts Council

First-ever Artisan Market coming to Melfort Exhibition

Jun 28, 2022 | 5:41 PM

The Melfort Arts Council will be hosting its first-ever ‘Artisan Market’, this year at the Melfort Exhibition.

This will also be the first time in the last two years that the Melfort Exhibition is able to occur.

Chair of the Melfort Arts Council Joanne Bolen told northeastNOW she’s hopeful to see as many local artists as possible.

“Anything to do with arts, or handmade or crafts, or even homegrown garden products. We decided to put together an artisan market show and sale and with that, there are booths available within the exhibition hall number one, and even a few outside on the south side of the building, if somebody wants to set up out there.”

Bolen also said there’s lots of excitement for this type of event, which she hopes goes according to plan.

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“This is the first time ever, so hopefully, it’s going to be a great turnout and something new and exciting. Anybody who wants to either show their handmade stuff, or show and sell, or even do some demonstrations. Then people can come and look and watch that.”

She mentioned, however, that the limits are beyond just art.

“We wanted to aim for people who are fine artists or people who do their own handmade crafts, even anything to do with making it yourself or growing it yourself. So, we’re open to people who want to do baking to sell, or even homegrown garden vegetables to sell. So basically, we’re aiming for like an old-fashioned type of artisan market and fair.”

She also explained how events like these are exactly what the Arts Council strives for, as this is what their initiative is all about.

“The Melfort Arts Council mandate is to be able to work with other community groups, especially the nonprofit groups. So, as the Ag Society is a nonprofit group, they reached out to us for some help and we said, hey, why not? Another part of our mandate is to make sure that we reach out to artisans, especially in the northeast area, but also all over Saskatchewan, to build a stronger community overall.”

And while COVID hasn’t been exactly easy on the Arts Council, the birth of events like these can be viewed as a silver lining.

“We usually stick with bringing in visual art shows and live performances, but we have not had those in the last few years. Another part of our mandate is to start branching out and helping out the arts community, so this is brand new to us and we are excited. We still need these events to be able to network with other artists and just be able to talk to people and just start feeling hopeful, a little bit more normal again.”

The Exhibition runs July 22, 23 and 24. If you want to register for a booth, you can do so by heading to their website. Registration deadline is June 30th.

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Ben.Tompkins@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter @BenTompkins_8