ONE WORLD FOLK ART MARKET Holiday Pop-up December 14th
Last year Mexico By Hand celebrated the holidays and 20 years of doing business as a provider of crafts and folk art from Mexico with a special event at The Hillside Club in Berkeley. It was such a great success that we're doing something similar but different in 2025-- as we partner with a few of our friends to present the One World Folk Art Market, again in Berkeley. In addition to fine handmade crafts from Mexico you will see beautiful items from around the globe curated by passionate vendors. Scroll down to see more about them and what they will be bringing to the show!
Shop for unique handmade gifts that connect you to artisans from around the world: African beads, Alebrijes, Candles, Christmas decor, Figurines, Jewelry, Pillows, Rugs, and many unique styles of Pottery.
Enjoy a Ballet Folklorico dance performance at 12:30 and live music at 2:00. Plus, we'll have delicious handmade tamales and aguas frescas available to purchase all day long.
Learn more about the vendors and art here:
Mexico By Hand
In 2004 while living in Mexico, Peggy Stein and Doug Wheeler produced a video documentary on Michoacán’s master artisans for La Casa de las Artesanias in Morelia. That work grew into Mexico By Hand, a small California-based import business that has been educating Americans about the artisans of Michoacán and selling their extraordinary folk art and crafts in the United States for over 20 years. At the One World Folk Art Market you will see a variety of pottery styles, jewelry, textiles, and folk art by award-winning artisans in Michoacán that is rarely seen in the U.S. You can see a preview at www.mexicobyhand.com
Mike Silverman is known to many of you as the owner of What the Traveller Saw, a shop that used to sell crafts from around the world and celebrated all things cultures have interpreted in their own way-- such as textiles, worship, music, and sculptures. An avid collector of many things, he still has a "Stash" of things to share with you that include African trade bead jewelry, statues, textiles and Indonesian puppets.
From the highlands of Chiapas, the Maya weavers’ cooperative Jolom Mayaetik offers 100% cotton textiles, handwoven on a backstrap loom — blouses, tapestries in a range of sizes, shawls, scarves, pillows, table runners, tea towels, tablecloths, cotton and wool bags and purses. The cooperative was formed in 1996 and since 2000, Charlene Mayne Woodcock has, as a volunteer, been bringing their beautiful work to California. Traditional patterns and weaving skills have been passed from mother to daughter over hundreds of years, and newly created products such as these can bring the vibrant color combinations and painstaking, elegant designs of this Maya cultural tradition to our homes and closets.
To learn more about the cooperative, here’s a piece published at the time of their exhibition at the San Francisco Airport Museum: https://www.cnch.org/
Sergio Martinez is a master Zapotec weaver and designer of heirloom quality
tapestries. Each rug is an original design that is hand woven by Sergio and his family in the tradition that has persevered for generations which includes hand spinning and dyeing with both natural and aniline dyes.Sergio’s tapestries have been collected by
discerning rug collectors throughout the world and his art has been featured in countless design and interior decorating books including the cover of Architectural Digest Magazine.
“I am pleased to present the centuries old legacy of weaving. Each step in the making of a rug is completely and skillfully hand done with the best assortment of meticulously selected natural dyes and designs which make each rug an exceptional masterpiece.” -Sergio Martinez
You can see more of Sergio's work on Instagram @smtapetes.
share with you. Sharon closed the gallery in San Rafael, but she continues to exhibit and sell her wares at events in the Bay Area and on her website: https://thefolkartgallery.com
As Sharon says: When buying from an artist/maker, you aren't just buying a thing, you are buying a piece that represents a heart, part of a soul, a moment of someone's life. You are buying hundreds of hours of failures and experimentation. You are buying days, weeks, months of frustration and moments of pure joy and generations of cultural tradition. Most importantly, you are buying the artist more time to do something they are passionate about and often helping preserve an art form that otherwise might disappear without our support.