The Artist Gift Market at the Macon Mall is open for the holidays

The Artist Gift Market features art from nine different local artists, all female, and includes various handcrafted items ranging from paintings, pottery, jewelry, fabrics and clothing items, lotions and soaps, and even books.

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Are you still shopping around for gifts, not quite sure what to buy, look no further, because over at the upper level of the Macon Mall, located at 3661 Eisenhower Parkway, the Artist Gift Market is open for the holidays.

The Artist Gift Market features art from nine different local artists all female and includes various handcrafted items ranging from paintings, pottery, jewelry, fabrics and clothing items, lotions and soaps, and even books.

Wini McQueen, the artist who also did The Canopy Exhibit during the bicentennial celebration last year, is head of the market and hopes to make it an annual event.

We spoke to her about her experience setting up the event.

“Well we have an artist market, a very large one and what we’ve done with the work is we’ve actually tailored many of our art pieces so that they are useful and affordable to the public,” said McQueen

“I think what’s important is that we create a new market for people who enjoy unique one of a kind objects,”

“I’m overwhelmed with joy and with responsibility. That’s how I feel. I have friends, I consider everyone here a friend and I feel responsible for bringing the public to them. I have enjoyed so much getting to know people who I’ve just seen at shows and other places,”

“I’m getting to know them and I’m enjoying working with them and we have created this space that I think is very colorful and accessible and so it’s been a joyful, busy experience for me,”

“A lot of people can’t imagine us in this space, because it’s been a long time since Macon Mall was a popular shopping point. So we always tell people to enter the mall from the Mercer University side and to drive straight ahead and they can find us here in the atrium,” she said.

Artists involved including Wini McQueen are,

• Darlene Rutland Murphy, Freestyle Art & Design
• Kimberly Pope, ChemScentsations
• Mary Martin
• Meg Campbell, Meg Campbell Pottery
• Njeri Binta, Soul So Happy Studio LLC
• Sharon Bailey, Fabric Collage Artist
• Valeria V. Cordy Cray, Author of Sample Your Words, See How They Taste, with Illustrations by Sabbath Canady and Sojourner Canady

The Artist Gift Market is open Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays through December 29 from 12pm to 5pm.