It is a clear, brisk Saturday afternoon and the wind is capricious. Traipsing down the brick walkway of the Downtown Mall, passing by assorted shops, you wind your way through a cosmopolitan crowd.
Tables, stands and booths begin to appear along the walkway closer to the Mall's center. A bevy of trinkets, jewelry and clothing tempts the attention of passers-by. This is the dazzling downtown market phenomenon.
From teal-and-black lamb's wool scarves, to vanilla-scented incense, wooden duck carvings and delicate amber and turquoise necklaces, there is much to satisfy either connoisseurs or dabblers in arts and crafts. And behind each table is a vendor, sitting, talking to a customer or working on a new artistic creation.
A knack for knitting
It is Avis Binford's first weekend vending on the Downtown Mall, but she sits at ease, dexterously holding two wooden knitting needles, in the process of creating another scarf. A pile of luminous finished products lies on a messy heap on her table. Each mesh-like scarf has a unique shape, and each boasts a vibrant color, whether it's lime green or pale purple.
Putting down her handiwork, she says the inspiration for her creations is color.
"I'm interested in anything that has color and texture. I like to juxtapose smooth fabrics with coarser fabrics," Binford said. "I like to mix colors that you wouldn't necessarily see together."
Weaving her fingers through one of the finished scarves, Binford says she also loves the sensual aspect of knitting.
Binford, a University alumna, after going through a variety of ill-suited business jobs, set off in a whole new direction -- an artistic direction.
"I started out in beads and jewelry, but there were far too many competitors," Binford said.
Now she sticks to hats and scarves. Her hand-crocheted hats are like skullcaps, formfitting, and patterned with concentric circles of brash color.
"It's only my second day, but so far people have been very receptive," she said with one of her many bright smiles.
Binford said she is happy with her trade, which often leads her away from her Richmond home to do various shows in Virginia.
"There's not a lot of money in this," Binford said, still smiling. "So if you don't like meeting interesting people this is not it. Because on many days, that is the highest reward: meeting different people and interacting with different people."
Crooked constructions
The increasingly feisty wind is rattling Kari LeMay's display of metal birdhouses.
"A lot of people don't end up putting them outside, but I actually had a whole bunch of them on my porch this spring," LeMay said, clad in a flowing gray coat, with white fluff at the cuffs.
As she pointed out the different parts of her birdhouses, she listed the origins of the different materials.
"This is from the junkyard, a brake-line that comes out of a car. And this is off a barn roof, and these are made from pallets that have been torn apart," LeMay said.
Painted in loud colors, the birdhouse's metal roofs are roughly curled and transfigured. One has the body painted yellow with purple whorls, crowned with a shining blue roof.
"I had a bunch of stuff lying around and I was really broke," LeMay said, looking out from behind her blue-tinted glasses, "and I wanted to come up with something to make that wouldn't cost me -- really, pretty much, anything at all. And now I of course have to go out actually hunting for things."
Littered among the birdhouses are other bizarre constructions: a decorative yellow mirror, and a fish sculpture made from a sheet of metal.
LeMay says she always has been artistic, an inclination which drove her from dressing mannequins in department stores, to fashioning window displays in Texas, to her present trade of setting up at various markets and craft shows.
"It's a neat thing to do when you don't fit into the rest of society," LeMay said with a laugh. "Actually anybody who does this kind of work, they're very eclectic and pleasant people to deal with -- creative people."
Creativity with copper
Across from LeMay's booth, Brian Scott's birdfeeders, trivets, trays and cans glint in the sun. His copper constructions are sleek and stylized.
"I was playing with my food one day -- a fortune cookie," Scott said. He imagined what it would look like if you opened the fortune cookie vertically instead of cracking it horizontally. "I was like 'Wow! That would be a cool birdfeeder.'"
Scott works with a farmer's market for the majority of the year, but he goes to craft shows when it's not the farming season. He started traveling to Charlottesville last December from Christiansburg, and his enthusiasm for the Downtown Mall is impossible to hide.
"It's hip, its really hip. I love it. We have a downtown market in Roanoke that's not bad, but it's not like this, and it's also more regulated. It is so loose and freewheeling here, you never know if there's going to be drummers or street musicians or string quartets."
Scott dramatically recounted a day on the Downtown Mall last year. A small dancing troupe suddenly convened in an open space and performed Morris dancing, a type of English folk dancing.
"They just appeared and started and one guy had a fiddle, and it was great," he said excitedly, gesturing toward the area where it all took place.
Scott also likes people-watching on the Downtown Mall.
"There's a lot more punk-looking kids and the distinguished professorial looking types," Scott said. "It's a different mix of people."
A couple, browsing through Scott's merchandise, asks about some interesting clay sculptures on one of the tables. They are roughly cylindrical, with little jeweled eyes and molded eyebrows.
"Those are garden statues," he explained to the customers. "You put them out in your yard and they watch over the premises for you."
The statues, called Grotz, are made of hypertufa, a material that weathers over time and grows to look increasingly like real stone.
"They have a little story with them," Scott said, getting out a little card. "Shy and grouchy. No social skills. Best left alone," the card reads.
When the couple wants to buy two, Scott readily assents.
"I'm having a blast," he said, in his blue Naval Air Station cap.
As the afternoon fades away, Scott places a few more Grotz figures on the table. LeMay takes down her birdhouses one by one. And Binford accepts another compliment on her downy scarves.
"It's a very intimate community among arts and crafters," Binford said. "We all kind of speak the same language"
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