Artisans from the Island's smallest town displayed their clay pots, jewelry and other wares at the annual Aquinnah Artisans Holiday Fair over the weekend.
Aquinnah artisans have been busy all year making clay pots, taking photos on the beach or carving and weaving quahaug beads into jewelry.
Over the weekend, the artisans displayed their work at the annual holiday fair inside the town hall, welcoming guests hoping to make a dent in their holiday shopping.
Stephanie Devine.
Stephanie Devine.
Stephanie Devine presented feather arrangements alongside sage bundles and canvases bedecked in quahaug shells. Ms. Devine said she’s brought her art to a number of artisan fairs on-Island and she’s proud that her passion is now recognized by the community.
“Just today I’ve had customers come back from last year looking for me,” Ms. Devine said. “So that was pretty big.”
She said some people have brought her feathers, and someone at the holiday fair offered to bring her owl feathers they’d gathered. Ms. Devine, who is a member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), said making the feather arrangements is sacred to her and a passion that started after making her kid’s regalia.
Now she has hundreds of feathers from turkeys, guinea hens, pheasants and blue jays. Ms. Devine knows when it’s time for molting season and where to look for them.
“This art comes from the heart,” Ms. Devine said.
New this year, Jerry Baxter and his wife Virgina Robinson brought their crafts to the fair.
Mr. Baxter served in the Vietnam War and proudly wore a hat honoring his service. For the past 40 years, he has been designing and carving toys from scrap wood he had lying around.
Tysonnae Aiguier-Bolling along with her deerskin work.
Tysonnae Aiguier-Bolling along with her deerskin work.
“I noticed that a lot of kids didn’t have toys and I had a lot of wood, so I just one day started making little designs,” Mr. Baxter said.
On his table were carvings of go carts and rubber ducks with wheels that he uses an electric saw to cut. He does all the designing and the piecing together, but leaves the painting to Ms. Robinson.
The sturdiness of their work stands out from many of the store-bought toys of today.
“My grandson picked one up and threw it against a wall,” Mr. Baxter said. “It didn’t hurt anything. I looked at it, and it didn’t chip. I figured, okay, kid proof is what I wanted and that’s what I got.”
Behind their table, Ms. Robinson also sold fabric Christmas trees that she had sewn using leftover fabric from some of her other projects.
The couple has lived in Aquinnah for three years, having visited for years prior, and the fair was a nice way to meet people.
“I haven’t been out in the community and I thought this was a great opportunity to meet and greet,” Ms. Robinson said. “In fact, I met the neighbor from the next house up a ways from us.”
In the front entryway of the fair this year, a propped photo honored Aquinnah resident Gabriella Camilleri who founded the fair seven years ago and died earlier this year.
Berta Welch.
Berta Welch.
In her absence, Kathie Olsen stepped up to help organize the fair with town treasurer Jamie Vanderhoop. Ms. Olsen, who is well known in-town for her community service, sold her handpainted Christmas ornaments and her husband Charles Hoye’s pottery.
Mr. Hoye’s mugs and bowls can be found year-round at a wooden stand by the Aquinnah Circle, where visitors pull over and trade in their cash.
Ms. Olsen sold cookbooks she made when diagnosed with alpha-gal earlier this year. Within the first three hours of the fair, 26 of her 30 copies had been purchased.
“I thought I should make this available, because everybody in my community is getting alpha-gal,” Ms. Olsen said. “We’re all on this kind of same journey of trying to find a way to eat great food.”
Mr. Hoye was diagnosed with the tick-borne allergy three years ago, and since Ms. Olsen’s been scouring her collection of cookbooks and online websites for recipes they’d enjoy. The task was extra complicated due to Ms. Olsen’s coconut allergy, since coconut milk is often used as a substitute for dairy.
“I’ve learned a lot and some of these [recipes] are absolute treasures,” Ms. Olsen said.
Jerry Baxter sold his homemade wooden toys.
Jerry Baxter sold his homemade wooden toys.
Juli Vanderhoop brought her Orange Peel bakery to the fair. She sold jars of jam she often gives her family members during the holidays and conversed with guests about her honey harvesting.
Tysonnae Aiguier-Bolling sold handcrafted goods from her business Red Tail Boutique. She displayed earrings made from the fur of a deer’s tail, along with pouches and miniature moccasins made from deer leather.
Nearby, Berta Welch presented her contemporary wampum jewelry and goods from Stony Creek Gifts, a shop at the cliffs she co-owns with sister Carla Cuch.
Jennifer Staples, who owns the Bowen’s Arrow shop at the cliffs, flew in from her home in California and sold her clay pottery, which uses a traditional Wampanoag technique to bring out the colors of the cliffs.
“It’s millions of years old,” Ms. Staples said. “It’s really ancient and holds the Earth’s history. The yellow and the red are from times where the earth was very iron rich, and the darker grays are when there were fires burning on Earth.”
She also sold jewelry with pendants made from the clay along with merch from her store, which she runs with her mother Kristina Hook.
Ms. Staples emphasized that it is only legal for members of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) to harvest, or touch, the clay from cliffs. She has a sign in her story explaining the law for tourists that may be unfamiliar.
Ms. Staples said the holiday fair is a time she looks forward to since most of the fairs in Aquinnah are held during the summer when locals are too busy to gather.
“It’s more special because it’s actually the year-round Islanders,” she said. “It’s not the tourists that are here, it’s actually the people that live here… the [fair] is always a really good event.”
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