A new arts and crafts retail and collaboration business featuring Sioux Falls-area artists, The Maker’s Circle, will hold a grand opening Saturday at The Cascade in downtown Sioux Falls.
The brick-and-mortar will open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday at 701 N. Phillips Ave., Suite 155 at The Cascade between the Root Cellar (temporarily closed) and Candy Cloud Factory/Intoxibakes. The space was previously occupied by Uptown Wellness Academy and Bloom Room.
The Maker’s Circle includes locally handmade items such as jewelry, home decor, candles, wall art, kitchen items, photography/drawing/painting and much more, all within one space.
At the center of it all is a large community table that will be used for crafting events, workshops and party rentals.
Attendees of the grand opening have chances to win door prizes, do arts and crafts projects and get their faces painted at 2:30 p.m. by Color Bee Face Painting.
The event also will be a chance for others to meet some of the currently 22 vendors (and counting). Those who are interested in being a vendor can sign up on The Maker’s Circle website.
Payment options will work similarly to craft shows, by scanning a QR code and digitally paying via Venmo, Cash App or PayPal for each artist. This allows each artist to be paid directly, showing them in real time what they have sold.
Owners Bobbi Clayton and Meagan Turbak-Fogarty both work in education and share a passion for bringing more creativity to the community.
Clayton previously taught classes at the former Sioux Falls craft store Unglued, which is now only located in Fargo, North Dakota. She manages her own jewelry business, Wild Peach Creative, and has led classes in macrame, jewelry design and crochet throughout the community.
Turbak-Fogarty also runs her own small business, FogARTy Arts. She has a bachelor’s in the arts and a master’s in education and has taught in Sioux Falls for more than four years.
It was Turbak-Fogarty who approached Clayton several months ago with a dream of starting a summer art camp for tweens and teens.
“I really missed being in that creative space and teaching workshops and helping people, guiding them through a creative project,” Clayton said.
The pair began inquiring and soon found there was “definitely” a market in opening a brick-and-mortar that will also host workshops for all ages and their new summer art camp, Artfully U, for adolescents in 6th through 12th grades.
The camp has six weeks of classes, each type of class lasting from 9 a.m. to noon Monday-Thursday, beginning in June, to learn skills such as drawing, textile, sculpture, photography, green art and even art careers. Kids can choose to take all six classes or pick and choose.
“We’re just trying to find ways to really bring happiness and joy to the people of Sioux Falls,” Clayton said.
Store hours during the school year will be 4:30-8 p.m. on Fridays, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturdays and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sundays. The space also will be available for private parties as needed. Summer hours will be determined at a later date.
“We just really love making things,” Clayton said, “and believe that arts and crafts are very important to happiness and joy, and don’t we all need to have that in the world right now?”
