Holiday shopping a critical draw for Jackson artists
Everyone knows the holiday season is crucial for retailers. Last year, November and December represented 18.5 percent of the industry’s total annual sales, according to the National Retail Federation.
Retailers aren’t the only ones hoping that Christmas gift-giving brings business their way. Artists in the Jackson area have been setting up gift shops, organizing special exhibitions and creating artwork that can serve as stocking stuffers.
“Artists definitely do capitalize on the holidays,” said Judy Gail Krasnow, one of the Armory Arts Village residents who helped open a gift shop in one of the building’s studios last month. “Living at Armory Arts, we have to work somewhat seasonally. We just have to be really resourceful.”
While artists are able to sell work during summer art fairs, Christmas is an opportunity they shouldn’t ignore, painter Jane Robinson said.
“I don’t believe it’s as (important) as it is to a retailer, but at the same time, people do buy art for gifts,” said Robinson, one of eight artists currently displaying in a temporary gallery in Kibby Cobb Plaza in Summit Township. “You put yourself out there, and if you make money, great.”
In the Armory Arts Village gift shop, visitors can buy photographs, quilts, woven candle-holders made from plastic bottles, hand-painted silk scarves, decorated furniture, jewelry, blown-glass Christmas ornaments, gift certificates and T-shirts with a caricature of an inmate that Krasnow features in her historic tours of the former prison.
Most items in the store are $50 or less.
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