(electronic music)
- I'm working on some Arizona pocket tees.
Definitely my signature piece.
I'm doing a bunch of prep for Cultivate.
Yeah, it's been a crazy, crazy progress
and really gunning for it.
- I stress out about pottery occasionally,
but it's always a really good stress.
The hardest part is just consistently
throwing a really straight cylinder.
The way the force on a wheel works
it's always pushing your clay out,
so just learning how to put
just the right amount of pressure to keep it straight
can be a little challenging.
I just keep wanting to get better,
and that's what keeps me coming back at this point.
Often, I don't think it is even a creative pursuit anymore.
It's just a pursuit of trying
to get really good at my craft.
Without Cultivate, I really don't think any of it
would have moved so quickly for me.
(down tempo music)
- When we first met and started talking about
what would it look like to have a market in the fall,
who should be involved, what really should be the purpose,
we wanted to bring the community together
with small businesses and artists and makers.
At the first market,
I think we had almost zero expectations.
We were just hoping
to pull it off. - People would come.
After that first one it felt like we had birthed something.
I mean, every market feels that way.
- [Kristin] This is our fourth kid.
- [Claire] We got it.
- We have to do the courtesy 10 second countdown.
- We really love building the hype and the buzz,
and Kristin's really good at that
with the social media.
And, at least I know, when I see an event is two days
I am much more likely to on Saturday be like,
"Oh, I don't know maybe I'll go tomorrow,"
and then I actually never end up going.
- [Crowd] Three, two, one.
(cheering)
- [Claire] But, with our market it's one day,
and I really find it brings a lot more people.
(funky music)
- We've done free tote bags in the beginning
for the first 50 people that come to the market.
Maybe we're just crazy.
We are.
- Yeah.
- We like the buzz.
- [Claire] It's really exciting to have that burst.
Everyone's like, "Why don't you guys do it
"at the same spot you did last year?"
- And, it's too easy.
- It's too easy.
One of the most terrifying, but also the most fun parts
is trying to find the building
because nothing can happen until we have the building.
We can announce it.
We can maybe put the application out,
but until we have the contract signed to use a space,
the market cannot happen.
Our goal is always to introduce emerging spaces
that people can imagine what they could
become at our markets.
- We also wanted to have another level of impact,
another layer, and so we had our vendors
donate a percentage of their sales to a local nonprofit.
It gives us an opportunity to give nonprofits in our area
not just financial help,
but also relational capital to work with,
volunteers, people finding out about what they're doing,
and spreading the word that way too.
This year we were able to donate
approximately 8,500 to local nonprofits.
(funky music)
- Thank you so much.
- [Kristin] We definitely sat down on the front end,
and really thought through what we wanted it
to look like before even going into the first market.
We wanted something that was really consistent throughout,
quality being one of the markers for that.
Crafted not crafty.
Claire mentioned too, we wanted to appeal
to both men and women.
- [Claire] Branding is how one communicates a message
and how that comes across, controlling your message.
- Specifically, we're representing
a collective group of artist's makers and businesses,
and so that visual element to Instagram
is just super helpful, and then being able
to look through a feed and say,
"This is the kinds of things I can find at the market."
You go into it with an intention
which is the branding of something,
and you continue to produce content that is similar to that,
that has the same focus, the same feel,
you're evoking the same response in people,
or at least you hope that your branding
does that consistently.
- I really wanted to keep one for myself.
- You can make more. - But, I'll make more.
- [Customer] I can't make more.
- [Ursula] What sets it apart is just how much care
Claire and Kristin put into the entire event.
I can tell that they really care about me
and the other vendors, and they're working so hard
to promote this event because they want to see
us succeed as artists.
- Her first market was the last holiday market,
and her growth has been exponential.
Her wholesale orders, she gets all these wholesale orders.
(gentle music)
- If I hadn't been at Cultivate
I would not have those orders,
and because I got those orders
I'm getting more presence on social media
and especially through Instagram,
so other shops are finding me.
I just shipped off a large order of my candlesticks
to a really cool shop in LA.
It's definitely been really good supplemental income,
and I'm spending a lot of time trying to decide
if I think it could be something I can do full time.
- [Claire] Outside of our one day market
it's really more about the momentum
that they ride from our markets,
and that's pretty much the most exciting part for me.
- I've done a lot of markets,
and it's hands down my favorite.
It was just super polished from the get go,
and they really cared about the vendors.
I love that they, it makes perfect sense,
but that they promo us leading up to the market.
- You know, he started out at our first market,
and he's consistently been with us,
and we've been with him in promoting him.
The element of people in Tucson not necessarily
recognizing the talent that is in Tucson,
and Quinlan's a great example of that.
He has been doing the same thing the whole time,
and is getting recognition in other communities
and other cities like Phoenix, Phoenix Fashion Week,
winning Emerging Lifestyle Designer of the Year.
- So, I won 2018 Lifestyle Designer of the Year
for Phoenix Fashion Week.
Super excited.
Humbled, and now there's definitely no days off.
Really got to go for it.
You just got to keep that traction going.
(gentle music)
- Cultivate is a good fit for Tucson
because there's a lot of stuff happening.
It's not always pulled together and packaged
in a cohesive way that makes sense to the community.
- And, that's really the core.
We want to raise the bar for local goods and local business
and showcase them, so they get more business.
It feels like we've accomplished so much,
and it's a really rewarding feeling,
but at the same time we're super analytical,
and we are always thinking about...
Like, we have a notes for next time doc
that we just add to during every market,
and we're always thinking about
how we can tweak and improve.
- [Kristin] We never feel like,
"Oh, we've completed this event, and we've arrived."
We've completed this event.
That was really exciting.
What's next?
How can we make this better?
And, how can we keep growing?