The fair welcomed numerous creators from the Winston-Salem community looking to professionally showcase and sell their original work. Wake Forest students, faculty and staff used this opportunity to purchase artisan creations like stitchery, baked goods, pottery, woodwork, photography and printmaking, among others.

Wake Forest graduate Kayla “K” Amador presented her alternative fashion pieces and handmade jewelry at the stand for her online shop “Iconografi.”

“Iconografi is a combination of a lot of different aesthetics that I’m interested in, such as Japanese anime and street fashion,” Amador said. “I make jewelry that makes a statement and that is kind of eccentric, hence the shop motto ‘embrace your eccentricity.’”

Everything in Amador’s shop is handmade or a creation that she worked with a manufacturer to produce.

 “A lot of it is laser-cut acrylic or stainless steel, so we design it on the computer and then have it cut to assemble by hand,” says Kayla.

Amador felt inspired to found “Iconographi” after graduating from Wake Forest as a studio art and Japanese double major in 2019. 

“After graduating and starting my first job, I realized I had free time in the evenings with no homework, which I decided to fill by creating and designing,” says Kayla. 

When she searched through Etsy unable to find the jewelry she imagined, she decided to make it herself.

 “I thought maybe I could just design it myself and then it took off from there.”

Other members of the Wake Forest community also displayed works at the fair. David Link and Tim Mitchell, who both work at the ZSR Library, hosted a booth called “Hidden Meadows Honey” where they sell honey, soaps, body butter, shampoo bars and bath bombs made with real honey.

“David started with the bees and then the honey just bred into our creation of soaps and other goods,” Mitchell said.

“I started out with honeybees that were difficult to work with, and they, unfortunately, didn’t make it,” Link added. “Then I got my Russian honey bees and it was a whole different world. They are so amazing and productive, so we don’t have to use chemicals.” 

Their “Bee Clean” handmade soaps come in a variety of scents that incorporate bee honey. 

“I choose scents that I like and that I would use,” Link said. The soaps include Beeswax Lavender Mint, Cardamom & Cedar Blossom, and Double Butter Persimmon Brown Sugar & Fig.

Diana Goldstein, another creator at the fair, hosted “Bookish Birds”, in which she sells wall art and filled glass ornaments made out of old book pages. 

“We repurpose old books and dictionaries into new art.,” Goldstein said. “When books are ready to go to the trash or recycling we use them for creation so people can enjoy them in a new way.”

Goldstein was inspired to begin this project by an experience making glass ornaments for friends.

“I made a bunch of book ornaments for people and people kept asking where we bought them,” Goldstein said. “I thought if people thought I bought them, then maybe I could sell them..”

Goldstein, like the other artists, does not plan on stopping anytime soon. 

“It’s an idea that you just never stop. We just keep finding fun quotes from books and fun things people say that we can put on our pages.”