This weekend, ARTS/West, 132 W. State St., will be holding a Prints, Plants and Pots sale that will display local artistic and agricultural work open to be purchased by the public.
The event is a pre-holiday sale that will showcase house plants, handmade artwork and ceramics which include traditional pottery as well as jewelry, all of which are created and sold by local individuals.
ARTS/West hosts various shows, performances and classes across broad artistic themes. Emily Beveridge, program specialist at ARTS/West who coordinates the operations at the venue, explained that the concept of the Prints, Plants and Pots sale was conceived after holding a similar event months prior.
“We had an impromptu event in September where we had a print and plant combined sale, and it went really well to the point where I decided we should try to expand on this and have another sale closer to the holidays,” Beveridge said.
Amongst the contributions for the art in the sale are prints created by the Ohio University Bobcat Print Club. Connor Furr, a graduate student studying fine arts, is the president of the club. Furr explained that the process of printmaking is a culmination of multiple forms that primarily aim to transfer images onto different surfaces.
“Printmaking is a way to create multiples of the same image through handmade means,” Furr said. “So even if there are digital capacities incorporated into the process, like screenprinting, it’s a reproduction of imagery using relatively antiquated methods, but it’s still done by hand.”
The prints for this sale, Furr described, will follow a specific theme to coordinate with the other items being sold.
“Prints can be made of anything, and in other cases there’s more specificity, so for this sale we’re focusing a lot on plants,” Furr said. “So people are making new work and reprinting old etchings that have plants in them.”
Moxahala Micro Farm will be a vendor at the Prints, Plants and Pots sale, selling house plants to those who attend. Henry Yeager obtained a degree in agroecology at Hocking College after deciding to become a farmer and forming an interest in gardening. Since 2016, Yeager has worked to establish the Moxahala Micro Farm, which is an agricultural cooperative that farms sustainable local produce. Yeager depicted his formulaic and intentional process for farming produce that is beneficial to the environment as well as to the individuals that consume it.
“What I’m doing here on my property is about sequestering nitrogen and carbon from the atmosphere into the soil,” Yeager said. “I’m trying to build my nutrient levels in my soil that will allow me to have more nutrient-dense food for people to consume.”
The proximity of Yeager’s profession to the intimacy of the environment aligns with the issue of climate change. Yeager believes that for progress to be made on the issue, the public must shift their perspective away from themselves, and instead focus on the direct impact on the natural environment.
“We can’t be looking at this from an anthropocentric view, we need to be looking at how it affects the animals in the sky to the microbes in the soil because it’s affecting everything,” Yeager said. “We are stewards of the land now, like once you start growing something, you are affecting the outcome of that life.”
Due to his belief, Yeager stated that his role as a farmer is his personal contribution to the solving of the climate issue.
“If I’m gonna do anything at all in the sense of climate change and make this easier for the human race to survive while not harming any animals or plants in the process, and regenerating the earth all at the same time, I think this is the best route I could take by being a farmer,” Yeager said. “It all starts and comes back to food.”
Aside from the positive benefits to the environment, the products in the sale also enable the sellers to showcase their work to new audiences. Furr described that events like this sale will display not only physical work, but the intricate techniques and applications that his art experiences have provided him.
“Being educated in art has allowed me to think critically and that’s hard to access oftentimes, and it really has given me a wide variety of trade skills,” Furr said. “So if anything, its lack of specificity in what you’re learning allows you to potentially be plugged into a wide variety of fields.”
While the sale will offer creative benefits, Yeager expressed that the individuals he will meet at the event are who he is looking forward to the most.
“I’m most excited for the connections that I’m going to make and the people I'm going to meet,” Yeager said. “And I hope that people find the true beauty in the plants that I bring and in the plants, prints and pots that others bring.”
