by Jessica LaVopa
Students on campus have always been creative and spontaneous. Coming to campus Sunday, Sept. 30, a Community Market Sale will be debuting to promote campus artists— a place where everyone, not just Visual Art students, can sell their work.
According to co-founders KC McCarthy and Danielle Read, two senior painting and drawing majors, the two want to create a more casual Zinefeast, – an annual Purchase run event – where visual art students can sell their artwork and prints. “We want this to be like Zinefeast but we want to include the entire community,” says Read. “I love the idea that everyone can come together to share interests and thoughts with their peers.”
Going forward, the event will be held bi-weekly on the great lawn near the Hub.
If all goes well, the Community Market Sale will be moved inside, location to be announced, during the winter season.
All it will take is a student to bring a blanket to set up shop, lessening the burden for students to have to rent tables. Anyone on campus can bring their art to sell, and the objective isn’t money. The event doesn’t even need funding because it can be student run according to Read and McCarthy.
“It’s up to the seller how they want to price things, or you can even trade. It doesn’t matter,” says McCarthy. “We wanted to create a non-PSGA place where people can hangout and make new friends.”
The Community Market Sale idea began when McCarthy saw students throwing their art work away at the end of the semester, and with it, all of the time and effort put into the work. Read, a transfer student from SUNY New Paltz, took inspiration from her old campus. SUNY New Paltz holds an art sale every Wednesday and Thursday and Read wanted to bring it to Purchase, creating the Community Market Sale.
“I think there’s this divide between VA majors and other students on campus, this weird intimidation thing,” says Read. “We need to break that and create a place where everyone can share their ideas.”
And students at Purchase are behind the two girls saving the arts movement.
Malachai Marzolf, a sophomore BSVA student focusing in graphic design, loves the market sale idea because there’s more of a variety of art then at Zinefeast.
“Zinefeast is mainly focused on zines. I always said it would be cool if they sold shirts or anything else,” says Marzolf. “Here [at the market sale] you can sell anything and it allows artists to become interconnected with one another.”
Not only can students make relationships with other artists, the event shows students the potential their art has.
“This can help students calm their nerves about what comes after college because if they don’t make it big at least they know someone will buy their work,” says Marzolf.
Diane Puello, a sophomore sociology major, agrees with Marzolf. “You’re including students who aren’t VA majors and they can discover something, a path, a career, that they didn’t think would be an option for them,” says Puello.
McCarthy and Read both hope that the Community Market sale will bring out artists on campus and help students sell their work instead of throwing it away.
“It’s a way for artists to expose themselves, gain experience, and build relationships,” says McCarthy and Read.