Written by Claire Killian
Photos by Adela Schwartz
On a particularly humid Sunday afternoon in mid-April, two of your intrepid Ratrock correspondents traveled to Morningside Park to check out the Morningside Art Exchange. Tucked into the hillside slope of Morningside Park between 121st and 122nd street was a breezy, buzzing nest of activity. As someone who had never been to an art market, my head was swiveling. Everywhere there was something. DJs had set up speakers, and the music set the vibe as vendors and visitors mingled. The best word I can think of to describe this art market is cool. Everything was cool - everyone looked cool, everyone made cool art, everyone said cool things. If I felt any nerves walking into the market, they were quickly melted away. It was as if all the good vibes in the world had settled on this patch of grass for the afternoon. On everyone’s tongue were compliments - for outfits, for art products, for simply showing up. Adela and I would like to introduce you to the friendly faces, and brilliant minds, of your friendly neighborhood art market.
Caroline Shimeal (she/her)
What are you selling today?
Second hand glassware mostly, but also some ceramics and a few wood pieces. Generally decor items.
How do you find these objects?
I've always been into thrift, both online and in person. I've been kind of buying and selling stuff for a long time. I think I started selling my clothes on Poshmark when I was around thirteen. My recent obsession is glassware and colored glass. I think vintage glass is so cool, it's a great way to add a lot of character to your home. I like having a little decoration piece that doesn't look like something you can just buy at Target. It's something so fun, and I think that we should all have more pretty things in our everyday lives.
Do you sell a lot online, or only in-person?
I only do it in-person. This started as more of a hobby. I don't even know how much I've made off of it. I really don't think much, if anything, because I just like the idea - I’ve always been giving my friends gifts, and I just was like, ‘maybe I can get a little money back.’ I love giving people things that bring them joy. Even when I sell things to people that I don't know personally, I like to meet up with them in-person and give it to them, or then they come pick it up. I like how that practice is more community oriented.
Tajh Martin (they/them)
Instagram and Tik Tok: @tajhcrochets
What are you selling?
This is Tajh Crochets! I'm selling handmade, one-of-a-kind crochet pieces. Everything is freehanded, made using my imagination.
How did you learn to crochet? How did you get into it?
I started when I was 12. I recently learned that I have adhd, which makes sense because as a kid I just picked up hobbies left and right. As a kid I kind of dropped the crocheting, but around 2021 I was about to graduate high school, there wasn’t much going on with the pandemic, so I ordered yarn on Amazon. Oh, also, I got COVID - I got COVID right before college. So I actually didn't see any of my high school friends before they left for school. I had nothing else to do, so I just crocheted. I've just been into crochet ever since.
Have you sold it in an art market before this, your first time?
I sold at the Chinese Student Association market. I didn't actually sell anything, but I was there! So, this is my first real art market.
How do you decide on the prices for your pieces?
I was just talking to my friend who knits, and pricing is really hard. Being a student, it takes a really long time to produce my work. Honestly, I'm gonna be real, I do undersell my pieces. Just because if I sold it for what it was worth, I would never ever make a sale. Most of my clients are Columbia students, and a college student is not going to pay $150 for a top. My method is about $20-ish per hour, plus cost of materials, but sometimes less than that if it takes a hundred hours. I really want to sell things for more because they're worth more, but I do have to get my name out there.
Emmanuel Okeke (he/him), Kylen Thompson (he/him), and Ekqueme Eleogu (he/him):
What are you guys selling?
We’re selling second-hand clothes, mostly mens, but we also had a couple girls come in to help contribute to women's clothes as well. It's our first time selling things like this. We brought all this together, and wanted to make it curated. The goal was to get a lot of pieces together to make it a vintage type - but also with new and different designs.
How did you hear about it today? Is this is your first time?
So my friend Jude, actually, is one of the main organizers that made the whole event. I have a class with him, and he would just tell me to start selling clothes. It started as a small thing, but eventually we got a group, and then got into curation, and it started growing.
How do you curate the clothes? Is it usually clothes that you guys have personally, previously owned?
A lot of things are just either stuff that we purchased and just have never worn - pieces that are not really for our aesthetic or things that we wore for a while but then just didn't feel like it. It's a lot of stuff that we thrifted.
Do you feel like when you sell clothes, you look at the way people dress a little bit differently?
I pay more attention to what people might like. What I'm trying to do now is when people come in, trying to see what they wear so I can help them out. People will sometimes ask me things like, ‘oh, do you have this or that’ and I like trying to help them out with that. I would say selling clothes just makes you pay more attention to things people wear, and what kind of first impression they’re trying to make.
Adrienne de Faria (she/her)
Instagram: @adriennedefaria
Depop: @dridefaria
Have you ever sold at an art market before, or is this your first time?
I've been selling clothes since I was around fourteen on Depop. I've had a Depop shop running for about five years. This is my first time selling in-person, though.
Have you thought at all today about how it's different selling clothes in person?
I like it a lot better. I think it's fun, you get to think more about how you're presenting your clothes. It's very cool to lay all these pieces out. I love that they're hanging on the tree branches, it's so cute. I really love it. We didn't plan it - we got here with all our hangers and we were like, what do we do? Do we hang them on something? My friend was like, ‘you need to put it on a tree,’ and so here we are. I definitely like it in-person more, I like talking to people too.
How do you curate your clothes? What kind of thought goes into that?
These are all my personal clothes that are not ugly enough to donate, so I'm going to sell them. There’s a consideration of how often I actually wear it. So, this shirt behind you, I fucking love this shirt. I think it's really cool, and it's a cool piece, but have I worn it the year that I've owned it? Not at all. That's how I'm doing the selling and trade. Sometimes you just need a refresh. I'm literally doing this to make room for my new clothes.
How do you set the prices for your clothes?
Mostly it's based on what I bought it for, which I can usually remember fairly well. Then also I have to consider brand and vintage-level. For example, earlier I had an Oscar de la Renta, vintage dress that I bought for $90 and I sold it for $50, which is pretty significant markdown, but I felt like, if I wanted to buy this, I would not pay $90.
Watson Frank (they/he):
Instagram: @wat_is_the_world
How are you feeling?
I'm feeling very good. It's been fun so far! I've made a couple trades, and a couple other things. So I'm doing great.
Have you ever been a vendor at an art market before?
I have sold things online, but not in-person before, it's nice so far. I only started getting into printmaking over the past year or so, and it's been super rewarding. All of these are hand printed, which means that they’re made using analog techniques. There's no digital anything. All these are etchings made with copper.
Do you wanna talk a little bit about the art itself? Where do you get your inspiration?
What I'm selling today are all my prints from the end of 2022. Each of them are inspired by different animals that I take inspiration from, or a derivative of those. I have these little goblin guys, I have a rat king, which is like all the rats tied together by their tails. I'm also very inspired by nature, plants, and children's books.
How have you decided on rates for today?
I did invest a good amount of effort, and all of them are handmade, so I'm operating on like a $15 to $35 sliding scale, just depending on how people are feeling. I'm also doing trades and exchanges. If I'm going to trade something, it will be an equal effort type of deal.
Tonycia Coe (she/her):
Instagram: @itstonycia
What are you selling today?
Today I'm selling my silkscreen art prints!
Have you ever been to an art market before?
This is my first time, actually. The reason that I'm here is because I have so many extra prints from my screen printing class that I'm taking at Columbia.
What’s the inspiration behind your prints? How do you make them?
I really like using my own photography, and translating those into silkscreen art prints. A couple of them center around nature. I really like using photos of the sky, editing those, and playing with the colors, layering on top of each other for my art prints. My process is basically: I find my images, I print those out onto like transparency films, I choose my colors, and I go from there.
LEO (they/he):
Instagram @itslvaysman
What are you selling?
I'm selling linoleum prints, patches, and stickers. Everything is handmade, everything is totally unique. I carved it myself, printed it myself, mixed the paints myself in some situations.
I'm seeing pomegranate motifs, teeth, knives - what's the inspiration?
I would say that my art is inspired in large part by things that make me happy - the little mundane things in life that are joyful to me. I’m particularly inspired by geometric shapes, symmetry, and also by my experiences as a transgender New Yorker, second-generation Eastern European immigrant. The knives I just think look cool, though, those don't have much of a meaning.
Dom Jackson, @seemonsters on Instagram