Live music filled the crisp autumn air as people wandered through a market in Old Town Square Friday, Oct. 17, picking up handmade pottery or rifling through a collection of stained wooden landscapes.
The Moonlight Market, hosted by Wild Season Pop-Ups, brought local artists and businesses together for a cozy autumn market that began at 5 p.m. and lasted until 9 p.m., with the moon glowing overhead.
“My favorite part is just talking to people,” said Cheyenne Smith, one of the many vendors at the market. “It’s fun interacting and getting to see all the different reactions and everything like that.”
Smith is the owner of Shy Witch Productions, an online store where she sells handmade jewelry, candles and more. Included in her display on Friday was a jewelry collection made from real butterfly wings.
“I procured these from a local establishment,” Smith said of the wings. “I used to live in Colorado Springs, and everything was sustainably sourced from Madagascar, different parts of Africa, everywhere like that, rain forests and the like.”
Handmade jewelry and crocheted bags were far from the only thing available to those wandering through the market. Tucked between Smith’s table and a large tent selling more handmade goods was a small wooden table with a deck of circular cards in the middle. Behind the table sat Lisa Anne Mayfield, who was offering tarot readings to curious passersby.
Mayfield began practicing tarot when she was 19, around the time she had her daughter.
“I was in my forever day of labor, and my friend brought me the cards to give me something to do, and I had a baby,” Mayfield said. “All of a sudden, there she was.”
At the time, Mayfield was in the process of becoming a therapist and has since integrated tarot into her practice within her own private business. Participating in pop-up events like the Moonlight Market allows her to meet new clients and share her approach with the community.
“If I don’t go out, I don’t get clients,” Mayfield said. “My little business is two and a half years old, so as often as I can, I’m here.”
The square was crowded with people browsing each booth, many of whom had stumbled on the market while enjoying the autumn evening.
Fort Collins resident Rachel Isenberg was on her way to a show with two friends, Ruby Johnson and Maggie Tibbetts, when they stopped by the market.
“We had dinner right across the street, and we saw the market,” Tibbetts said. “We thought, might as well walk on over.”
Markets like this one are vital for small business owners like Lisa Arp, owner of The Pottery Bunker.
“I don’t really have a large online presence yet because I do two of these a week now,” Arp said. “It’s almost impossible for me to keep up with my online shop and do this because, I mean, this is everything I have. So if I sell something and I’ve taken the time to post it online, then I just have to unpost it.”
Arp has been making pottery for 25 years, she said, but it became a full-time business for her just a few months ago.
“Three years ago, my husband and I built a studio for me with a kiln, essentially to still keep it as a hobby,” Arp said. “But I started signing up for the shows and things like that, and there’s a pretty good market for my stuff. So in May I quit my job, and I’m doing this full time now.”
From the booth just behind Arp, the gentle scent of coconut and apricot wax candles drifted through the square from Wild Wax Candle Company, owned by Sara Braiman. Her booth, lined with candles named after endangered species, invited shoppers to engage with conservation in a small but meaningful way.
“I used to work in health care, so I wanted to create a really clean product,” Braiman said. “But I also launched around COVID, and it made me look at how we’re treating our wildlife. I wanted to support endangered species and get people involved in a beautiful way because the climate crisis is really hard to hear about.”
The concept, as Braiman put it, was that lighting the candles could connect people with nature while also making an impact through a portion of the proceeds going to The WILD Foundation and the Inland Ocean Coalition, two conservation organizations based in Colorado.
The candles are made from coconut apricot wax, a renewable source that helps keep the candles free of palm oil and harsh chemicals like phthalates. On the lid of each candle is a QR code that provides customers with information about the endangered animal represented on the candle.
“It’s a kind of storytelling,” Braiman said. “We really want people to learn. Some of these species, people don’t even know about them, and this world offers so much.”
Reach Hannah Parcells at life@collegian.com or on social media @HannahParcells.
