The DIYpsi Indie Art Fair, Ypsilanti’s annual holiday market, celebrated it’s 6th year last Saturday and Sunday at the Riverside Arts Center.
Artists from all over Ypsi showed off their unique work from knitted hat to abstract art, colorful buttons with original drawings, homemade greeting cards, an assortment of Michigan-themed canvas artwork and Ypsi tower candles, baked goods, jams and jellies, and small rooms for artists personal galleries to view, and the Ypsilanti community group, FLY, dedicated to bringing art projects to kids in all of Ypsi, had a giant yarn web all could participate in.
Veachel Hosch sold knitted hats and other accessories. This was her first year at the Diypsi festival and was taught to crochet by her grandma when she young. Some of her hats have additional ears hand sewed on which adds a level of complexity to the design.
“The basic base of a hat I can make in a little bit under an hour. Then once I start adding on all the details, these become very time consuming,” she said.
Amber Liddle has been making bibs for 7 years. “I was home with my daughter and she needed a bib and so I started making bibs for her and I’ve always had a fabric addiction so it gave me a way to buy fabric and make things with it,” she laughed.
After Liddle would post her bibs on Facebook, friends wanted some for themselves so she opened at Etsy shop in 2009 and since has been selling them out of her home studio.
BreeAnn Veenstra has a one-woman business with her greeting cards, doing everything from design, printing, lettering, and art.
“I went to school for illustration so I’ve always been freelance illustrating ,” she said. “Most of the lettering is all done by hand and my illustrations I do traditionally or digitally or a combination of them.”
After founding her own studio in 2013, she started doing custom wedding invitations and eventually got into working with stationery. Veenstra often uses Illustrator, Photoshop, or Indesign. She also works part time at a print shop so the cards are printed on professional presses.
Natalie Berry and her husband collaborate on every piece of abstract art on canvas and wood. “It’s pretty basic abstract. The fun thing about it is that I work with my husband and we pass them back and forth and build on each other’s ideas,” she said. “We usually start with two blank pieces of paper wood and do a timer and say ‘1 minute,’ and then switch."
