The business of arts and crafts, post-COVID

GILFORD — Joyce’s Craft Fair, organized by Joyce Endee of Gilford, brought 97 vendors and crafters together Saturday and Sunday at Gunstock Mountain Resort for a Labor Day weekend extravaganza of skills, imagination and whimsy.

That included John Liberty, owner of Liberty Farm and Forge in Corinna, Maine, who calls his welded creations “animated metal” and said he derives his inspiration and instructions from the Lord.

His booth was a virtual Noah’s Ark of animal sculptures made from objects and spare parts found around the farm, barn, house and some scavenged from junkyards. His creations included metal bugs, birds, flowers, dogs and dinosaurs. Some were the size of paper weights, while others towered at 7 feet with moving pieces.

After building this business over 17 years with help from his wife, Liberty said he caters to consumers who want something amusing that will stand out — and his customers include online buyers in Europe and Asia.

“They sell faster than I can build them,” said Liberty, who drove to be part of the end-of-summer craft fair from his town near Bangor. Liberty worked 37 years as a drywaller before he was able to make and sell his welded art full time.

“I’m a big believer in small-town America,” he said, and the importance of creating a happy experience for world-weary shoppers and consumers bored of big-box stores. “There’s too much information now; too much that’s technical,” said Liberty, a jovial man with an ample smile. “Come here, take a stroll with your family and have a laugh for a change.”

That may be a key to the enduring allure of craft fairs, which can resemble indoor-outdoor bazaars and mini-World’s Fairs of ingenuity where entrepreneurship commingles with artistry, and hobbyists act on their dreams and hunches and make things that can bring us joy.

After one or two years of hibernation during COVID, craft fairs are making a comeback. Events in the Lakes Region soared in turnout last summer, when consumers were anxious to escape sequestering and home to places where they could meander, entertained, while prowling for bargains and homemade gifts.

Vendors and fair organizers said attendance on Labor Day weekend this year seemed lighter than last summer, mostly likely curbed by inflation, gas prices and less disposable income. But crowds and interest remained strong, even if fewer day trippers dipped deeply into their wallets, vendors said.

The events Saturday through Monday at Gunstock and Alton Bay included many crafters who had started crafting during COVID as a way to stay productive, turning hobbies into part-time jobs or full-time retirement occupations.

On Saturday, almost every browser was glad just to be there and look.

“We like to come see what everyone has come up with and put their imaginations to work,” said Kristine Birchmore of Haverhill, Massachusetts.

“People make such unique things,” said her friend Mary Dupuis of Billerica, who owns a weekend house in Sanbornton.

Crafters were happy to show their wares, even as supply-chain issues make raw materials harder to come by.

“I want every show to be different,” said Endee, who’s organized Joyce’s Craft Fair at Gunstock for eight years — including a smaller, socially distanced version during the pandemic that has since returned to its original format and volume. “This is a whole universe of small businesses. Some crafters do it as a hobby. A lot of people do it as a side business, and a few do it full time. My job is to bring people here.”

“We come up every other weekend, looking for something to do,” said Tray Forsythe of Peabody, Massachusetts, who has a camp in Gilmanton. “Concerts, craft fairs — just to see what different stuff is coming down the line and how creative people are."

“The people here make all their products, and the people who come appreciate that,” said Dee Landry, manager of the Alton Bay Arts and Crafts Fair, which draws exhibitors from across New England and is now in its 32nd summer.

At Joyce’s Craft Fair on Saturday, Liberty’s booth resembled an outdoor sculpture park, featuring small and large figurines, including a "spummingbird" and a "Maine Spoon Cat" forged from welded spoons, and a "Tyrannosaurus Wrench" and a "Tyrannosaurus Hex" pieced together from bits of hardware.

“All the bugs have names,” said Liberty's wife, Debby, including a plier fly, a needle nose flyer, a spark bug, a "Screw Fly, Don’t Bother Me" and a horsefly made from a welded horseshoe. Liberty repurposes used kitchen utensils, shears, chains, saw blades, mattress springs, hammer heads and lawn mower blades, making metal-collage landscapes and coat racks out of vintage and weathered metal parts.

John McCann, a former real estate agent from Lowell, Massachusetts, brings his booth, “The Funny Side of Life,” to trade shows throughout New England, selling T-shirts based on sayings he’s seen or heard, catering mostly to women. One of his bestsellers reads “I finally found my sleep number” above four wine glasses. A big hit with guys, according to McCann, borrows a COVID-era slogan from Ireland: “A big nose is no reason not to wear a mask. I still wear pants.”

Last year, COVID relief funds padded discretionary spending, which translated to more people with more money to spend at craft fairs, McCann said.

COVID also spawned a new cadre of vendors and crafters.  

In 2020, Lisa Bouchard of Danville gave up graduate studies in physics at the University of New Hampshire to become a full-time writer, authoring eight "Isabella Proctor Cozy Paranormal Mysteries" since then, with herb garden titles such as "Leaf of Faith," "Chive Right In," "No Big Dill," "Romaine Calm" and "Root Cause." Her protagonist is a 21-year-old witch who works in a modern day apothecary, and in the tradition of cozy mysteries, the stories include no descriptions of sex or violence, which offers appeal to younger teenage girls and older women readers, Bouchard said.

“It was the pandemic and I needed something to do,” said Bouchard, who self-publishes the books and now sells them at craft fairs and on Amazon.com, with a goal of expanding to independent book stores.

The books are “a fun, potato chip kind of light reading,” she said. “You can read these without having nightmares.”  

During COVID, Leona Burgess and David Erickson of Manchester created "Vocoa" brownie and baked good mixes, catering to the demand for desserts free from major allergens, such as eggs, dairy, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, shellfish and soy. The vegan couple — he an attorney and she a project manager of fisheries for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — minted their brown rice and tapioca flour recipe packs in an incubator kitchen in Londonderry, and started selling them in 2021, most recently in Hannaford stores. They now tour the craft fair circuit.

“It's pretty challenging, and there are certainly a lot of road blocks along way” such as compliance and sourcing hurdles, Burgess said. “It’s not for the faint of heart. You hit obstacles and have to think your way around them.” The desire to make something they and others with dietary restrictions could use was an intense motivator. “People would say to us, ‘I haven’t had a brownie in 15 years.’”

Using her COVID relief payment, Tonia Cardinal of New Durham, a former teller and banker-manager, bought a laser engraver with her first stimulus check in March 2020. She used it to engrave coasters, trivets, trays and scenes in wood that she now sells at craft fairs across New Hampshire. With her profits, Cardinal bought two more engravers, and is working toward making a joy-giving hobby into a full-time job. 

“This is what I’d like to say I do all the time,” she said. “I know COVID wasn’t a good thing. But it was the best thing that happened to my life. I was able to stay home and grow it. Creativity — it just explodes.”

For six years, Mike and Deb Tatrault have made honey — and goat milk-based products using honey from 20 beehives in a less-than-1-acre yard in Manchester, and taken their products to craft fairs in summer and fall, after a hiatus for COVID.

At this point, Deb said, their Sweet Bee Farm soaps, candles, honey and lip balms have a following. “It’s nice to talk to people who say they came here just for us,” she said.

For 20 years, Horace Varnum has traveled to the Alton Bay Arts and Craft Fair where he sells names carved from wood for use as tree ornaments, room decor and gift tags.

“Anywhere there’s tourists, I go in the summertime,” Varnum said. Compared with Bar Harbor, near Sedgwick, Maine, where he lives, New Hampshire has more people with money and the Lakes Region seems to have larger and more consistent tourist populations, which makes traveling worth the trip.

“I’ve done consistently well along the shore of the lake for years,” Varnum said. “For a year to 18 months, almost everything was canceled, including indoor and outdoor shows. Toward the end, when things started to open up, people were so tired of being inside and were dying to come out” — which translated to a bounty for craft fair vendors.

Joan Major of Bedford, who makes jewelry with her adult daughter, said she stopped going to craft fairs for two years because of COVID, which made her inventory grow. Now “people are really grateful to see the artists back and we’re grateful to show what we make,” Major said.

For Martee Crowlee of Dover, who has hand-painted glass onion lanterns for the past 24 years, the post-COVID world hasn’t been a friend to staying in business. Crowlee imports the lanterns she paints, and said her customs fees have increased at least sixfold in the past two years.

“Our supply chain is horrid, and we’re not Walmart,” she said. “It’s not easy for crafters.” After she sells out of the painted globes she has left at the Big E fair in Springfield, Massachusetts, later this month, Crowlee expects to fold up shop and go into business with her husband, “The Nut Man,” who sells fresh roasted nuts at fairs that are supplied by his Garrison County Nut Company in Dover.