Just Plain Fun: Wholly Craft!

Clintonville's Wholly Craft is perhaps the most fun of Columbus'
selection of locally-oriented arts and craft gift stores

Growing up, arts and crafts stores and gift stores were two different entities. Most of what I knew as gift stores were mall-based: Spencer's Gifts and those more formal gift stores where you could get engraved pen sets and other fancier tchotchkes served their purposes, but rarely got my business. Arts and crafts stores were where I could grab supplies for my various creative endeavors, but it wasn't generally a place I thought about for grabbing a gift, unless the gift itself was art supplies.

Maybe it was because I wasn't specifically looking for the combination of arts and crafts and gift stores during my time in California, but coming to Columbus has really opened up my eyes to this mashup. Perhaps its because I find many people who find pride in this state as well in addition to their city or neighborhood, and aren't afraid to show it. This mashup is evident in all forms here and has lots of purveyors, which you can find from local farmers markets, numerous local festival and event vendors, and even brick-and-mortar operations. But regardless of the venue, it almost seems like a mandatory-stop-and-take-a-look when the spouse and I have a few spare minutes to see what the folks of Wholly Craft! are currently offering.

From local festivals and events to their Clintonville brick-and-mortar
shop, Wholly Craft always seems to draw a crowd

Started in 2005 by Olivera Bratich, the success of this craft-oriented store mirrors the general upswing in the homemade crafts marketplace (the online king of homemade crafts, Etsy, was also established during the same year.) From its modest beginnings, this Clintonville-based business has now become a community staple, featuring the works of over 300 plus craftspeople, of which almost a third are locally-based as noted in this recent article in The Metropreneur.

For me and the spouse, visiting the brick-and-mortar shop or their booths at local events like Comfest, Moonlight Market and Oktoberfest is a visual and mental treat. The combination of solid craftsmanship, creative flair, and a good mix of local Columbus and Ohio references in the store's product selection personally makes me wish I had more time to dabble on my inventive side, or possessed a little more cash to actually buy more of the artistic and often playful items available in the store.

For knitters like my spouse, Wholly Craft! also features a space dubbed The Supply Closet, which offers (and accepts) recycled craft supplies and hosts workshops and private events. In addition, Bratich launched Homemade Ohio, a catalog company that will target Ohio-oriented goods that are actually produced within the Buckeye State. As Bratich herself noted in this Columbus Alive article,
“Nothing drives me crazier than seeing something with an ‘Ohio’ on it, and then the tag says ‘Made in China,’”

Featuring the works of over 300 artisans, Wholly Craft! offers a wide
swath of creative items with a highly evident local flair

I suspect that Bratich herself and the folks at Wholly Craft! would never have suspected that they would be in this for a decade, nor reach their cornerstone status in the Clintonville community as they have (and deservedly so.) Perhaps that's why their planned 10th Anniversary Party, scheduled for roughly one week from the writing of this post, feels just a little more special than that of most other businesses, even in the eye of this relative newcomer to the area. I suspect the celebration will be much like any visit my spouse and I have made to Wholly Craft! in the past: visually appealing, full of creativity, and just plain fun.

The Tenth Anniversary party for Wholly Craft! is scheduled for Saturday, October 17th, from 7 PM - 10 PM. Further details on the celebration can be found on the event page of their Facebook account.

Wholly Craft!

3515 N. High St. (Clintonville)

Columbus, OH 43214

(614) 447-3445

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Age Is But A Number: The Golden Hobby Shop

In the process of making our on-the-whim trip to the 2014 Village Lights holiday event in German Village (please see this post to read about some of the sights we encountered), my spouse had remembered a gift store in the neighborhood that featured arts and crafts of metro area senior citizens that she wouldn't mind visiting if we found their location during our event wanderings. This turned out to be the Golden Hobby Shop, and both my spouse and I ended up quite pleasantly surprised at what we found.

Founded in 1971 in the King-Lincoln neighborhood, this non-profit venture operated as a consignment shop catered toward the sale of handmade arts and crafts created by area senior citizens (currently, anyone who is 50 years of age or older can become a consignor of the shop.) The shop located a decade later to their current location in German Village when they outgrew their original space. With help from the City of Columbus (the shop is currently run through the Columbus Recreation and Parks Department) they took over and helped renovate the Old Third Street School in their current neighborhood to handle their operations. The shop had been threatened with closure by city budget cuts in 2009, but a deal between the shop's board of trustees and the city allowed the shop to operate with a minimal subsidy from the city and a lot of volunteer help.

These crafts, found in the main retail area, were just the tip of the iceberg

When my spouse had visited the shop several years ago, she seemed to remember a fairly select amount of goods for sale on a single level of the property. On this visit, we were surprised to learn, with the help of one of the shop's friendly volunteers, that there were multiple rooms with arts and crafts on two levels of the building. The main space itself would be considered a goodly-sized retail gift store by many standards and contained a cornucopia of items: greeting cards, mounted drawings, doll-sized clothing, assorted home goods and numerous sports-related tchotchkes were just the tip of the iceberg of what we would find during our wanderings here.

As we moved to the other rooms, we found even more items, holiday-related and otherwise, than we could have possibly imagined prior to this visit. These handcrafted products we examined covered all manner of themes, styling and uses. And while the items are all produced by senior members of the community, their appeal and practicality was hardly restricted to older folks.

Another thing that became quite obvious was the affordability of many of the items. While there are items that reach into the triple digits price-wise, we mutually agreed that many of the items offered for sale seemed quite affordable, if not close to a proverbial steal, based on the listed price.

The Golden Hobby Shop is currently open on Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 AM through 5 PM, with additional Sunday hours from 12 noon to 5:00 PM, now until Christmas Day (they will shutdown afterward until the end of January to perform inventory and space cleaning.) If you are looking for a handcrafted item with a bit of a personal touch for that special someone or someones this holiday season, at a price that may have you do a double-take because it seems like such a bargain, this now 40-plus-year institution of the Columbus is as good a place to start as any.

Golden Hobby Shop
630 South 3rd Street (German Village)
Columbus, OH
(614) 645-8329
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World of Wander: The Circleville Pumpkin Show

In my time here in the Buckeye State, I've quickly learned that Ohio is the land of festivals. Here in Columbus, you can get everything from cultural (Asian, Greek) to food/music (Jazz and Ribfest) to neighborhood-based (Grandview Digfest; the Moonlight Market, and the Short North's Gallery Hop) and everything in-between (Red White and Boom, Comfest and the Columbus Arts Festival.) And if you go beyond the metro region, you'll find seemingly hundreds more celebrations.

Pumpkin-related products from beer to baked-goods seemed to arrive a bit too early on the market for my tastes this year, and at first I mentally rebelled. Perhaps it was related to my hope (as it turned out, in vain) that a somewhat mild summer would hold for a bit longer. Alas, autumn came in and kicked summer to the curb, and after a short begrudging, my mindset shifted into that vibe. This meant I was more than ready to do my first ever wandering at the self-proclaimed "Greatest Free Show On Earth" - The Circleville Pumpkin Show.

Operating since 1903, The Circleville Pumpkin Show now stands as one of the world's largest pumpkin festivals in the United States, always being held starting on the third Wednesday of every October. The town population swells to approximately 8 times its normal size on each day of the festival, as approximately 100,000 people each day from all over the world visit during its four days of operation.

However, I did not read any of these factoids beforehand. As I had never been to a similar-styled event before (the San Francisco Bay Area has the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival, but it was just a bit too far to drive from where I lived to give it a go), I preferred to go into this experience free of any expectations.

I reached Circleville on this cloudy day approximately thirty minutes after the announced start time of festivities that day, and immediately got a sense of the potential crowd. I noticed that some dirt spaces close to the highway off-ramps were starting to fill up with cars, and after a little hesitation, I went with my gut and grabbed a spot. It turned out to be a good move: on the walk back from downtown, the line of autos to get into the parking areas closest to the downtown area had slowed to a tepid trudge.

Traffic wasn't too bad (yet) as I walked up Main Street into the Pumpkin Show

I don't what I was necessarily expecting size-wise, but I got a sense of how large a scope this event truly was as I walked around. This wasn't an event that covered a only couple of main streets in a sleepy small town; this was something that pretty much encircled the entire downtown Circleville area, with stands and other attractions on many of the side streets and alleyways. I ended up getting in much more of a walking workout than I ever would've figured to make sure I saw everything.

As I gathered in the scope of food options (of course, plenty of them were of the pumpkin variety, but there was plenty of carnival-style eats and a smattering of almost everything else), the arts and crafts collections, vendors, and the other assorted attractions (camel rides, autographs from Ohio State University Football alumni, music bands, etc.), it felt as if someone had airlifted entire county fairs from various locations in Ohio and plopped them onto downtown Circleville.

At this point, I think it's best to relate my day's experiences with a lot of pictures with a bit of select commentary.

Of course I had to have some pumpkin donuts; these beauties were fresh from the oven
of Circleville institution Lindsey's Bakery

Of course, you can't forget about the giant gourds; this young lad gives one a good idea
of just how large these pumpkins (first place weighed in at 1,964 lb) really were.

These colorful beauties were of more manageable size and were on sale for anyone needing a gourd to take home.

Wittich's Confectionary, opened in 1840, bills itself as the nation's oldest family-owned candy shop
I picked up some of their tasty pumpkin brittle to take home with me.

Historical marker detailing the origin of Circleville's founding on an ancient Hopewell Indian-era earthwork

These quilts were just part of the numerous submissions for the various arts & crafts competitions

This fun mixed-media pumpkin used circular lids of all sorts to provide the color

Pies (what else?) in the foreground; children's art submissions on the wall behind

I like buying my food from the local organizations at these affairs; the Circleville Kiwanis' version
of the Fried Boloney Sandwich was a perfect lunchtime meal

A youngster looks at the cornhole supplies from the Flipin' vendor tent

You can't have a Pumpkin Show without a pumpkin pie eating contest

The crowds were still building up by the time I left to head back north

After this first experience, I can see why the Circleville Pumpkin Show has evolved into the prime attraction that it has become. There's plenty here to entertain most anyone, especially a guy who's just in the mood to wander around for a couple hours with no real set plans.

The Circleville Pumpkin Show
Starting day: The third Wednesday of every October
Downtown Circleville, OH
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