Christmas Here We Come

The November DAM has come and gone and it was another success. We had a record number of 50 Artists and Growers participate. athe attendance for this one was around 550, about the same as October. Thanks to all who took part in and attended the inaugural Moondance Market, it was a start to an event we will repeat in December. On Friday the 11th we will have another MM, 6-9/10 as before. Its a preview party for the next day . Tell folks about it and lets see if we can make it work. On the 4th we will open the big room and the garden for Artists and Growers who want to sell during the First Friday Art Trail. We will have a show in Tornado Gallery that night, so it won't be set up for Market. Please contact me for further info about these events.

We will be welcoming McPherson Cellars and LaDiosa as two new vendors in December, gift bagged bottles of wine, wine accessories and some delicious new foods will be available. Welcome!

Everybody should be very proud of their involvement in The Downtown Art Market, its a huge shot in the arm for Downtown and gives us a chance to show Lubbock the caliber of Artists that are here.

Thanks Y'all

Marvelous Night For A Moondance

This Friday-the 13th-we have our first Moondance Market. A nighttime preview of Saturday's Downtown Art Market. Taking place from 6-10pm, imagine strolling downtown and shopping at night. Crisp air, wonderful Art and Produce. A throwback to the old days, a night in the neighborhood. We'll have some of your favorite vendors as well as a few new ones this weekend. Kick off your gift giving season by shopping locally. Give the gift of hand made or hand raised items this year and get double satisfaction. Support local Art and Farmers. Thanks Folks and we'll see you this weekend...

2 comments:

Randy -Fish-Fisher said...

I love the graphics for the Moondance Market because I created it. But understand that it was Larry Simmons & myself that really created this. It was Larry's idea, we talked and shared ideas & this is what we created. I'm proud of this image. Please support your local artists & growers & my friends.
Randy Fisher ( AKA Fish )
November 13, 2009 9:12 AM

Colorado Bob said...

I love these " Apple Crate Graphics " too

Six Markets...Six Months

Sure doesn't seem that long. Six Markets now, Six times we've all come together to show what we can do as Artists, Growers and Patrons. What a time we've had. Its always gotten better, the Market improves every time. Starting with our core of Artists...adding the Growers to the family, This Market we had Dancers- Thank you Fiesta Del Sol Ballet Folklorico- Musicians- Thank You Wade Parks, Jerry Slater and Bill Porter. What will be the next step? Who knows, it is an evolving concept. What we do know is that it is one of the most exciting events in Downtown Lubbock...more people discover it every month and it is just plain fun. We have as much fun putting it on as the people that support it.

In November...Friday the 13th. the first Moonlight Market, a preview night before the DAM on the 14th. A stroll through to see the wares our Artists have for the gift giving season. Stay tuned here for further info...or follow us on Facebook- The Downtown Art Market,

We...Tony, Jennifer, Colorado Bob. Fish and Myself want all of y'all to know this is a labor of Love and Respect for us. The love of community-the neighborhood- the love of Art and the respect for our vendors, and our business neighbors. The respect we have for our supporters-The Lubbock Arts Alliance...The Avalanche Journal...every customer we have is a supporter. All we ask is that you help us spread the good word...good things happen Downtown every second Saturday.

Great job everyone despite the brisk-crisp weather-it was another great day. Here is a great big Atta' Boy to all.

Larry Simmons...for all of us.

Vendor Links

Just a reminder if you are one of our vendors, and have an online site, please send your link to -

coloradobob1"at"mac.com

Slightly Soggy September

Well Marketeers we did it again...despite the ominous radar and the off and on drizzle, September's Market went very well. Although attendance was down, we still had around 600 folks, and there were some competing events most importantly The Cowboy Symposium.

It was in the words of one of our vendors still a great day. People were carrying sacks of Artistic works as well as fruits and veggies. The cool weather did add a nice calm to the whole event, it was less frenzied and there seemed to be a lot more interaction with Marketeers and Customers. That to me shows that the DAM is as much a community social event as it is a Market. That is a wonderful unexpected bonus to the effort.

Coming up in October we will be blocking part of Buddy Holly to traffic and setting up some stands in the street, this is the first step into making some of the Markets into full blown street festivals.

We hope y'all enjoyed our strolling musicians Wade Parks and Bobby Saied, we have wanted music as apart of this since the start. Thanks Guys.

Lets face it folks Art , Food and Music all make the World a better place for us all. Keep up the good work and we will too.
Larry Simmons

Here It Comes!

Okay Folks, this Saturday the 12th its DAM time again...the Market will be open and I have a feeling this one will be great. Everyone involved is looking forward to it and wondering how it can get any better, yet it has every month. The Artists and Growers are always stepping up to the plate and never disappointing their customers. The people who come are reconnecting to friends and a better style of life while rediscovering Downtown Lubbock. This Market is a chance for all of us to do something positive for each other while showing the Community that great things can happen when everyone pulls in the same direction. Come on L-Town-lets show people what we're made of!

A copy of our mailout this month

A Call for Sites & Ideas

It has been my intention to do this for some time , forgive me for being tardy. If you are a vendor at the DAM and have a web page please forward your link to me :
Colorado Bob
coloradobob1atmac.com
I will do some work on this thing , and add another list of just our vendors.

The Foxland Growers 8/8/09

Photo by Tony Greer

While sitting across the street this weekend, I was lucky enough to visit with a lady who was part of the The Chattanooga Market. She gave us some very nice words of encouragement .

If you have comments or suggestions please let us know what your thinking.

August 8th-What a day!

What more can we say than Thank You One and All! What a day! The Downtown Art Market wants to thank everyone who is a part of this community, the Art community, the Growers community we're all in this together and it showed on Saturday. What a spirit there was patrons and vendors alike!
We really do need to Thank some people-Elizabeth at The Lubbock Arts Alliance-she is one of a kind-and is on our side. She was our first organization sponsor and did those beautiful post cards, She is a rock in the Arts Community.
The Lubbock Avalanche Journal has stayed behind this from the beginning, they keep us in the events, neighborhood and community columns every month. That is huge folks-Thank You to the AJ.
People-give yourselves an Atta Boy-our Artists and Growers work extremely hard to do this Market and you are supporting it! The goodwill that is displayed at the market is overwhelming. Y"all make this the event it is...Hang on because its only going to get better.

Its Coming Up Quick

This Saturday the 8th is the Downtown Art Market, Art, Food and Fun for the whole family. Demonstrations by Rocky Rockwell courtesy of the Texas Department of Agriculture, Texas Fresh Plants and Produce. Lots more, you need to be here!

August 8-Farm to Menu at the Downtown Art Market

The Downtown Art Market , featuring a Farmers Market is announcing a special event at the August 8th event. In conjunction with the Texas Department of Agriculture and the Farm To Menu program, Chef Rocky Rockwell of Texas Tech Hospitality Services, will be demonstrating recipes using locally grown, fresh food. Chef Rockwell was recently named South Plains Chef of the Year and prepared local and regional food at the Ogallala Commons Local Food Day in March. This demonstration and tasting will be going on from 10am-2pm at the Down Town Art Market.
The Downtown Art Market takes place on the second Saturday of each month at 19th Street and Buddy Holly Avenue, centered around Tornado Gallery. The Market has over 40 vendors, showing leather work, glass work, jewelry, photography, painting, metalwork and more. In addition to that the Farmers Market features locally grown fresh fruit, produce, plants, herbs and flowers. The July Market attracted over 600 visitors.
We are very excited about this, the July Market was just beyond all expectations and its only going to get better. Y'all make it better, every one who comes to shop and all who come to sell make the Downtown Art Market the event that it is.

Ping Pong Balls

Well , Larry and I talked tonight. First good talk since Saturday. As we talked I thought of Don Herbert - " Mr. Wizard ". The coolest thing I ever saw was Don Herbert toss a ping pong ball onto a ping pong table, covered with mouse traps. .

This is 1959 folks, and I was about to drag our PhilCo TV to my 6th grade class in my long forgotten red wagon. Just so we could see all those very early rockets explode in black & white.

" Mr. Wizard " was explaining nuclear fission to all us baby boomers, and he had baited all those mouse traps with more ping pong balls.
Imagine a ping pong table covered , completely carpeted with mouse traps. EACH BAITED with 1 ping pong ball.

So Don tells us about splitting the atom. Why it works in reactors, & why it works in the bomb.
Then he tossed one ball onto that table, what follows next isn't a bunch of dominoes falling down .
It's pure insight into a nuclear chain reaction.

50 years later, as I listened to my friend Larry , I was just thinking of all those ping pong balls going everywhere.

One of our ping pong balls -

Paul Aguilar's Images of from 7-11-09.

The July DAM-Off The Charts

This weekend was a resounding smash. That's all that can be said. It was a group effort, a community event and a whole lot of fun all rolled into one...a neighborhood happening. We had 29 Artists, 7 produce and plant vendors, Mad Solar Scientist Colorado Bob experimenting and...drum roll please...over 600 people through the Market. People that numbered more than doubled in 60 days, 3 markets. Everyone who participated and supported this should be very proud of it, it was a killer event.
Tornado Gallery and The Downtown Art Market would really like to thank all the Artists who have been there all events and the ones who continue to sign on, all the growers who came this time and from now on to add another local flair to it all, and to the folks who get out and buy items -that's a key- this is a great event but to sell thangs is what its about, these Artists and Growers pour their time and hearts into their crafts and plants and by purchasing, them y'all are showing that you want local items, local food and want this to be a success-that is a great thang.
The Lubbock Arts Alliance,The Lubbock Avalanche Journal and McDougal Properties really stepped up to the plate and helped knock this one out of the park...Thank You!

Tony Greer, Jennifer Greer, Colorado Bob, our unsung hero Randy Fisher-Fish- who does our remarkable graphics and I want to express our thanks to every one of you out there who sold, showed or supported The Downtown Art Market...please keep it up and we will too!
Larry Simmons

Farmers Market Meeting

This is a nice shot of the first meeting for the Fresh Produce and Plants arm of the Downtown Art Market. Over 40 food gurus, growers, consumers and Downtown supporters gathered in Peggy Chapman's Garden at the Gallery to discuss the next step in this evolving concept. This will be a great market in July with 6, maybe more folks adding natural items to the markets wares.
The Downtown Art Market thanks each and everyone of those people who came to help in this project.

The Second Market and Beyond

Folks this idea is catching on, the second Art Market was another blistering success, blistering as in the heat! Every one of our Marketers deserves a huge pat on the back for hanging tough. As we all know Lubbock is hot, and it rang true on the 13th...hot. We increased our vendor count, stayed almost the same on customer traffic and again we saw people leaving with purchased items, thats right our Artists sold things. This Market is as much an attempt to make The Hub a cool place to buy Art, as it is an experiment in community effort. Maybe that should be "communal" effort-whichever it is a group of people who come together on the second Saturday each month and bring a little neighborly spirit to Downtown Lubbock. Why not get on board.

Whats in store for the future you ask...so do we, what do y'all see. The July Downtown Art Market will see (hopefully) our first produce people with more to come. We want to add a fresh produce/food thang to the Downtown Art Market, we'd like to see demos of some of the Art displayed, looking for a glass bead maker to work in the ArtLab, we have lots of ideas ahead, and we'll keep on trying to increase our traffic flow.We hope everyone will stick with us and tell their friends, this is a labor of Love but also a work of Art, and we want everyone to help in its creation.
Larry

Lubbock Farmers Market Grass Roots Committee

Our Second Market

" There's Indians in that Tee Pee, I just know it. "

Aerial shot from Tony Greer




Our Next Market is July 11th. See you there.

The June 13th Downtown Art Market

Its that second Saturday and that means The Downtown Art Market...this Saturday at 9am. The first was a success despite the unfavorable weather, and this one will be bigger. We want everyone who reads this to come out and support this event. This is a terrific way for artists, families and neighbors to come together and support Lubbock Arts. We have a wide variety of wares and vendors and there have been more sign up, We think we have something here...a grassroots event for everyone, for a good cause. Lets keep this rolling and just get bigger and better...see y'all Saturday.
Larry Simmons

The Downtown Art Market Before and After

2 1/2 years ago -



Sunday May 17 , 2009 -




Photos via Tony Greer -

NEXT MARKET

JUNE 13TH

The Baby Has Arrived

Well, our little baby was delivered here Saturday to much fan fare. I am happy to report she had all her fingers and toes. And she blew in on a brisk 35 m.p.h. north wind. But we Texans have sand, if nothing else.


I WANT TO THANK EACH AND EVERYONE WHO BRAVED OUR WIND TO DELIVER OUR BABY.
Our turn out was good 19 vendors, and about 250 people I've never seen before in my life. People here seem to get what we're up to. We've got at least 3 farmer/gardener operations lined up , coming on stream in June. That will really add to the traffic. And I know from our small experiments with this last year, that having the traffic we had on our opening day , will really please these local producers who have joined us.



Colorado Bob sez buy a DAM shirt & a Dam Poster


This site, and the way we got our seed money together is a project of mine , along with Randy Fisher, who worked tirelessly with me to create, this site, our event poster, and this cool T-Shirt. With Larry Simmons blue editors pencil , and Tony and Jennifer's help, we have made a larger point . That a small group of people looking to get together, can raise the start up money to do it a project. We didn't spend a nickle to set - up this site, and start our project.
And by the wonderful support we received on opening day , well my small social web experiment, has made me very proud of Lubbock. This little Market is a blue print.


One of our aims is to improve the neighborhood. In order to buy materials, and keep funding our efforts, we're selling our shirt to raise money.
Two of the improvements we want to tackle :
1 - A mural on the building across the alley from the market.
2 - A gate way into Tornado Alley at 1820 Buddy Holly over our wrought iron gates.

Thank You Marketers

Hello Marketers

I’m Larry Simmons, representing Tornado Gallery in this endeavor, Tony Greer, Jennifer Greer and Colorado Bob are the other hosts for The Downtown Art Market. Thank you for supporting this effort to start something in downtown Lubbock that revitalizes the sense of community and neighborhood that has slipped away. We hope to grow this into an event that we can all be proud of and will continue for a long time to come.
The first date will be Saturday May 9th, we will open at 9am so set up will start at 7am. All the areas will be outdoors so make plans accordingly. Shade devices, umbrellas, pop ups and such will be your own responsibility to bring. The booths will be either in the Tornado Gallery Garden or along Buddy Holly avenue, from TG down to Hulla’B Lu on the sidewalk. Everything will be taken down after the Market right now the market will close at 3. There will be no permanent or semi-permanent construction allowed. The areas will be set up so they don‘t interfere with the businesses open during that time, not in front of their doors and such. Electricity will not be accessible in every booth so plan that also. We will be setting spaces according to sign up with the Market, those who joined first will be in the garden area and it will progress out from there. We are sure that the first one will be a learning experience for all of us. The spaces will probably change from month to month also just to add some variety to the event. You folks that are farmers and gardeners bringing trucks and trailers will be set up in driveways and the street to allow folks to buy from your vehicles. If you bring a trailer, we ask that after setting in position, you move your vehicle to another spot, to allow for more parking. Bring your own change and such- bags, boxes whatever you think you’ll need to make this easy on yourselves as well as customers.
We are working with the City on this and have received lots of help from them but they do have some rules. The products sold cannot be purchased , resold items-they should be handmade items from artists or groups of artists. We do not want this to become a flea market. There is nothing wrong with those but this is a different animal and in order to do this that was a requirement. There are exceptions- art supplies, books, musician’s cds and such but no collectibles, housewares or things like . We will be looking at this hard to enable the DAM to keep moving forward. The retail businesses in the District can sell their wares on the sidewalk though, Tornado Gallery will be open selling its wares and we will probably set up a store of some sort in the front of our shop next door. We will try and make this an easy and fun event for all.
We’re finishing up a large project for the Arts Festival right now but before the Market please call me and make plans to come by Tornado Gallery and check out everything, my contact info will follow at the bottom. If everyone could , please e-mail me with your pertinent info and the type of things you will be selling, that will be used for publicity and other things.
Thanks to all for stepping up and Joining The Downtown Art Market, its all of us combined that will make this a success.

Larry Simmons, Tony Greer, Jennifer Greer and Colorado Bob
The Downtown Art Market
Tornado Gallery
806-239-1891
ideaworker@gmail.com
1820 Buddy Holly Avenue

Join Us

Located at the Heart of the Arts District...19th and Buddy Holly Ave. in Lubbock, Texas. The Downtown Art Market is a community effort to allow artists and others to sell their wares or their talents to the community. We are a monthly event that is an affordable, laid-back market to showcase YOU. It is an off-shoot of Tornado Gallery and we attract a broad range of open minded people that are into making Downtown Lubbock the center of the entire community once more.

If you have a talent, a product, a song a CD, more pecans than you can use...this is the event for you. Join with us and support your neighborhood. Our market is a year-round , monthly event..the Second Saturday of each month. Get in on the ground floor and help us make this a success. For $30 dollars we will give you 150 sq. ft.space in which to ply your wares.....For 1 year. Yes , 1 Year. We will charge $25 for 150sq. ft. *every month *after we open on the second Saturday of May...the 9th... Get in now and help us get started.

The Downtown Art Maket Up Date Page

SIGN ON HERE

In order to prove the viability of this Market, we've found an unusual platform, as unusual as our offer of membership. We've signed on with :

Either
Everyone pledges money by the deadline and Fundable turns pledges into payments.

Or
Fundable deletes everyone's pledge and no one pays anything.

Just click on this link, for more details, and to join up On our Fundables Page: