Art, Arts & Life

Point Douglas is for lovers

Porcelain maker Karen Taylor. Photo: Amber McGuckin.

Looking for a Valentine’s Day gift for your sweetheart?

The Point Douglas is still for Lovers North End Craft Show is giving people the chance to buy local for their loves.

The event takes place on Feb. 7 at Grace Point Church from noon until 4 p.m.

Ricardo Lopez-Aguilar is one of the organizers of the event. He wanted to create an event where people can buy local hand-made goods for Valentine’s Day.

“We are encouraging people to buy things other people have made with love for the people they love,” he said. “It’s not super easy to find hand-made goods in one specific place at this time of year in a craft show format.”

The vendors are using the theme to prepare Valentine’s Day specific products.

Karen Taylor is a fine art porcelain maker who is bringing along incense, aromatherapy, your new favourite coffee mug, pottery and special cinnamon hearts for her table.

“Instead of going to the dollar store and buying things that are mass produced…it’s a really good way to say ‘I love you,’ or ‘I care about you’ with something locally made,” she said.

Taylor started making porcelain professionally 17 years ago.

“I’ve always been interested in art and fine craft and how things work. It’s definitely been a life-long journey,” she said.

Taylor lives in the Point Douglas neighborhood and this is her first time in the craft show. Taylor said she sees a lot of themed craft shows around Christmas or spring, but not a lot during the winter months for Valentine’s Day.

Lopez-Aguilar said there will be a range of products including clothes, honey, preserves, felted animals, baked goods, jewelry, art, hand-made body products, candles and teas.

“I’m sure you could find anything you’re looking for at the event,” he said.

Last year there were 22 vendors and this year there will be 26. The turn out at last year’s event brought in about 300 people and Lopez-Aguilar expects about 400 people this time.

Another one of the other vendors is Kimberley Bialkoski, owner of a fancy preserves business called Flora & Farmer. She was part of the craft show last year and will have a table again for this show selling her jams and pickles.

She has unique flavours of jam including whisky and spiced marmalade, blueberry basil as well as strawberry beet and vanilla. As for her pickles, she’s canned some interesting flavours including hot and drunk horseradish dill pickles as well as schezhuan sesame pickled beans.

Her company started as a hobby canning foods, but expanded and has been in business for two years.

“It was an obsession of mine. I was making so much stuff when it was still in the hobby stage that I couldn’t even give it away. I had way too much stuff,” Bialkoski said.

With her kitchen in the Point Douglas neighbourhood, she said she’s looking forward to taking part in the community craft sale.

The craft show is a fundraiser for the Point Douglas Residents’ Committee for housing initiatives in the community, the spring clean up, community gardens and for planning events. Last year they raised about $2,000.