Like Etsy But…

IMG_3082Another weekend, another Halloween… but I’m getting ahead of my blogging. Last weekend saw the last SoWa open market of 2009. SoWa is a silly term for the south end of Boston’s South End.

It was a lovely sunny October day, we bumped into some friends, we bought some art… The print of dinos reading is by Eric Sturtevant: our home life sometimes resembles the picture.

The two smaller prints are by Chen Reichart, whose blog and Etsy store are called botodesigns. The autumnal print seems to illustrate that we should become a two-Android family soon. Chen and her partner were kind enough to compliment me on the tshirt I was wearing, and to ask where I got it (Threadless, Star Men in Moon’s Milk).

Indeed, the SoWa market is like Threadless, Etsy, and similar web sites come to life, in ways that demonstrate advantages of real life over the web. The market has a good selection of tshirts, crafts, etc. It also has an antique market next door, in a rather wonderful old trolley barn.

The market also provides the chance to meet the artists: that’s face-to-face, the ultimate social medium. On Sunday it had sunshine, halloween candy and other seasonal flavorings. Now, time to post this, and get ready for halloween itself.

South End Open Market

Bookish After the MarketYesterday’s excursion included the SoWa Open Market, a “shopping experience” that seems to be looked upon favorably at Yelp and elsewhere.

Typing of Yelp, they had a stall at the market: that’s where I got the bookmark in the photo. Yes, I’m currently reading The Lies of Locke Lamora, and finding it a lot of fun. My copy now bears the bookplate in the photo.

The bookplate is by Arian Armstrong. As I told her, I think that a bookplate is a great idea for a giveaway/thing for people to take instead of a business card. Recent posts at her blog include one about her day at the market, and one about her birthday sale (happy birthday for 10/10).

I also liked the work of William Greenlaw. Here’s a small sample of his work, in the form of a Gerbilope. Another of my favorite pieces was Jaye’s
ninja who leaves no footprints.

With birthday and Christmas coming up, it’ll soon be time to update Andrew’s Art Cart, the blog on which I register picture-y present preferences. So it was a particularly good time to encounter some new-to-me artists.