In an age of DIY crafts and all things Pinterest, Chattanooga residents Khristy Wilkinson and Morgan Claborn are seeking to create a safe haven for homemade wares while simultaneously celebrating local creative communities.
Their initiative, called The Little Made Market, is an independent arts and crafts market featuring mainly vendors from the Highland Park neighborhood that will be held on Saturday, May 24 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. by the St. Andrew’s Center.
“Art permeates everything, everything we look at. The Little Made Market is a place where people who want to make beautiful, useful things can share their work,” Wilkinson says. “We are seeking vendors and artists who really are thinking about the aesthetic and functional aspects of their work at the same time-a blending of the two.”
It is Wilkinson and Claborn’s love of their neighborhood that sparked the initial thought for the Market. Wilkinson says that she and Claborn met at a Highland Park neighborhood meeting where they began exchanging ideas about their views on art and their similar goal to raise local awareness about the artistic “Renaissance” stirring within the Highland Park area.
“Chattanooga is rapidly becoming a city of neighborhoods,” she says. “All these neighborhoods are building up and becoming interesting communities. Highland Park is next in line for that to happen. There are amazing things happening, especially in terms of the arts.”