The Art Market at Cheat Fest 2023
The Art Market is a semi-circle of quality arts and crafts booths with prime access to the main Festival area. Curated artists fill these booths with offerings of all sorts! In the past we have enjoyed pottery, glassworks, jewelry, prints, paintings, and so much more.
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Lily Barrat- Knots by Lily
My name is Lily Barratt. I crochet tops, bags, plushies, can coozies, and much more. I enjoy playing with colors that may not typically be put together to create fun wearable art.
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Matthew Benson, The Artisan’s Menagerie
I use a variety of techniques, both historic and modern, To create elegant and unique jewelry and accessories using silver, gold, glass enamels, precious and semi-precious stones and various inlays. My work is designed to be elegant and unique to match any style. Hand made with dedication and care.
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Sarah Cartron, Sarah’s Soap.A.Saurus
Sarah’s Soap•A•Saurus originated as a soapery in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia in 2012, and has quickly expanded their line to include natural body products. Now located in Aurora, West Virginia we produce bar soap, shampoo, hair conditioner, shaving cream, body lotion and cologne. Each bar is hand-crafted with locally sourced organic ingredients from West Virginia to ensure the purest quality of soaps. What is great about Soap·A·Saurus is that our ingredients are simple, and you know what they are and all of our products are palm oil free. We strive to create natural, home-made, hypoallergenic soaps for the community at an affordable price. Soap·A·Saurus also strives to package all products with eco friendly and recyclable materials to help reduce our carbon footprint. Our solid natural body products are long lasting, travel friendly, self preserving and are free of synthetic preservatives. Most of our bars weigh around 4.5 oz but because they are hand cut, the weight may vary between 4 and 5 oz.
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Gabe Dewitt, Art By Gabe
Gabe is driven professionally and artistically by an insatiable inquisitiveness. Everything in our observable universe can be boiled down to one simple question—Why? From the curiosity of a child to the most focused minds on the planet, this is the fundamental question. Gabe’s work focuses on the Why – producing intuitive visual media that tells the story via content driven by context, taking the question and solving for Y.
Born & raised in West Virginia, Gabe is a licensed WV Professional Engineer. For the last 12 years, he has provided support for industry & government in the areas of engineering, project mgmt, conceptual design, data science/analytics, & technical graphic/UX/UI design. Engineer by day & artist by night, his work has been published in NatGeo Mag, Nature Mag, Rock & Ice Mag, & Kayak Sess. Mag. He received the WV Juried Art Exhibition’s Award for Excellence in 2017, & won the 2018 Int. Paddling Film Festival’s Best Short Film Award.
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Sandra Frank, Blackwater Alcoves
Felted wool creations are inspired by the colors and textures in the misty wetland forest and bogs around my home. Wool bowls are great for the home as catch-alls for jewelry, office supplies, or educational toys. Rainbow stacking and nesting bowls are valuable for learning colors, sizes and coordination as well as useful for sorting and storing. Panhandlers let you keep your hand cool when your iron skillet is hot! 100% wool mason jar and can sleeves can help keep the contents cold, hot, act as a coaster and make the jar look beautiful.
All my felted creations are hand crocheted from 100% wool and then fulled, blocked, and trimmed. I have been creating with wool since childhood. I learned to crochet at a very young age from my mother and grandmother. I have used crocheting as a way to produce, relax, meditate, and create for as long as I can remember. I began felting in a quest for non-toxic, educational toys made from natural materials. I learned how great the medium is for creating items that are both beautiful and useful. I have always loved color and have explored how things capture and reflect light through both creative and scientific endeavors.
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Lisa Giuliani, Lock House Studios
All of my work is hand built and thrown ceramic art. I also hand build jewelry. All of my work is handmade in Morgantown, WV. it is dishwasher, microwave and oven safe.
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Carolyn Helenski, C.J. Sews
Carolyn Helenski is a daydreamer and textile artist who believes that incorporating a dose of magic into everyday life is essential. She draws inspiration from the natural world to create embroidery art and textiles that are designed with form and function in mind. All fabric and embroidery materials are sourced from local and independently owned fabric shops in Morgantown, WV.
Carolyn uses a Singer sewing machine from her mother to create scrunchies, napkins, bandannas for pets and people, and versatile drawstring baggies that can be used for foraging for plants and mushrooms, keeping yarn from tangling during projects, travel cubes for packing, and beach bags. She also embroiders pillows, wall hangings, and hoops.
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Ben Kolb, Nativibes
For as long as I can remember, I have retreated to sketching, carving and painting to express myself in a natural way. I am a passionate, versatile, nature craving folk-impressionist. Connection with the natural Appalachian atmosphere fuels my art and I believe the positive energy that I draw from my surroundings stays with the pieces I create and is passed on to the new owner, which is something I call “Nativibes.”I use different mediums to produce my work, watercolor, acrylic, coffee, oil, coal, etc. The Hollered Ground series uses paint made from West Virginia coal and is hand ground and mulled by me at the Nativibes Studio & Art Gallery in Mannington WV. The subjects are all Appalachian themed, focusing on local WV critters, landscape and people that give this culture its distinct mountain flair. The coal is found in the streams and hollers one may wander in the heart of West Virginia. My inspiration and subject matter has always been the beauty that surround me during my travels, the mountains, streams and lakes that are part of my blood come out in every piece that I create. I put my heart and feelings on canvas and hang it up for everyone to see, feel or share. It is my hope that when each of my clients take a piece of my work home, they get to experience the joy that created it.
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Darci Macur, Drawn In Stone
The beauty of combining stone and wood was introduced to me early, as I grew up watching my parents build a log cabin with a hand cut slate floor on the banks of the Cheat River. This is also when I discovered the fun of bringing home pockets full of cool rocks (see Mom – I did too have something I wanted to do with them. It just took me 30 years to figure it out.) and an apparently insatiable desire to figure out how to make whatever I’m doing harder. I first started experimenting with creating art out of stone over 10 years ago and it’s grown and evolved as I realized that I love working with wood almost as much as stone. The latest evolution, adding resin into my process, started as a supply-shortage necessity that turned into a fun challenge of exploring the ability to add depth to my pieces and expand my color palette of rocks.
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Eddie Maier, Eddie Spaghetti Art
WOODCUT PRINTMAKING consists of carving an image onto a piece of wood, inking the surface then printing onto handmade paper. I also create my frames using reclaimed barn and drift wood.
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Danielle Martin, Icelandic Ponies
Danielle Martin is a FOC board member as well as a forest pathologist, Wildland fire fighter, seamstress, watercolor artist and white water enthusiast.
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Mark Moody, Monongahela Media
Monongahela Media is a small media and marketing company based in Tucker County. West Virginia. Named after the Monongahela National Forest, owner and founder, Mark Moody, has a deep passion for the outdoors and uses this as continuous inspiration for Mon Media’s work.
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Jameson Mulac, Jameson Prints
Jameson is a printmaker and book artist who focuses her work on the native plants of Appalachia and their stories. She currently live in West Virginia and is completing her MFA is printmaking this year.
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Katie Mullins, Rockables
I am a self taught artist who specializes in bead embroidered jewelry. She uses delicate seed beads to create bohemian style designs in earrings, necklaces, bracelets and hair pieces. Other components you will find in her work include feathers, gemstones, hammered copper and dried flowers. Katie is based in the Monongahela Forest, where she draws her inspiration from sustainable micro-farming practices. She has three children and a passion for immersing them and her customers in what the West Virginia mountains have to teach us– beauty and stewardship.
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Jon Pitts, Woodcrafty
Jon creates intricate designs using different colored pieces of wood that are cut and assembled by hand. He thrives to have a variety of both one-off and small batch runs of work. During the Art Market, he also offers customization of necklace length and substitutions for ear wire materials.
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Susan Ramey, Ridgetop Pottery
Established in Kingwood, WV, Susan uses exclusively high-fired porcelain. Her wheel-thrown pottery is inspired by the mountains and rivers of Appalachia that she calls home, and is both functional and decorative.
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Tim Sanders, T.S. Paddles
Tim is fully addicted to whitewater kayaking and found a hobby hand making wooden canoe, kayak, and standup paddles in wood burned and wood stained art. My of his paddles will map out whitewater rivers or famous river races, but some are just beautiful intricate sculptures. The paddles are water tested and made from repurposed wood.
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Mary Jo Schick, Kula Tie Dye
I began producing Tye Dye over 30 years ago. I started selling at Grateful Dead shows. When they started to clamp down on vending at Dead Shows, I switched over to Art Shows; generally in WV, Ohio and Pennsylvania. It was my Day Job from about 1987-2008. I came to WVU to study either Horticulture or Clothing and Textiles. Got a BS in Horticulture, but made my living in Clothing and Textiles. My experience with dying, sewing and inventory management led to a job in Theatrical Wardrobe at WVU during the winters when I wasn’t doing outdoor art shows. Working in theatre really taught me how to take my show on the road.
I create assorted colors and patterns of vibrantly dyed adult’s and children’s clothing including: T-Shirts, Leggings, Socks, Long Sleeves, Tank Tops, Hats, Baby Onesies and T’s; also Kid’s T-shirts, Long Sleeves and Tanks. All Guaranteed to Wash and Wear beautifully. I have been producing Tye Dye for over 30 years. It was my Day Job from about 1987-2008.
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Jessie Tymoczko, Homestead Luminary
A longtime fascination with light and shadow led to the creation of Homestead Luminary. Jessie leans heavily on art nouveau influences in her creations, but is also inspired be the natural world and elements of art throughout history.
Homestead Luminary combines drawings and classic imagery to create wooden luminaries, lamps, lanterns, and shadow casting light boxes. Designs are cut and etched on a laser engraver and hand assembled with vellum light diffusing paper. An LEW candle or corded light is included with each piece.
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Chrissy Zeltner, Chrissy Zeltner Photography
As a Preston county resident who loves to kayak, hike and bike around gorgeous West Virginia, I love to capture images of the amazing things I see and share them with others.
