Culture & Community | Hamden | Arts & Culture | Whitneyville
Nicole and Amber Bartholomew-Gordon are the super wife-duo behind Denim Designs. “I’ve always been a DIY person. I like to do things myself. I love creativity and I kind of dragged her into it and it happened by accident,” said Nicole. “We do a lot. So, anything in the name of creativity, basically, is what we do.” Danielle Campbell Photos.
Just outside the Whitneyville Cultural Commons, rain pummeled the pavement, drumming against the roof and streaking the windows. Inside, Denim Designs’ Nicole and Amber Bartholomew-Gordon paid it no mind as they set up balloon fixtures over the stage and tables across the room, chatting all the while. When they had finished, bright bursts of white, black, bronze, and burgundy peeked out from the stage, turning a rainy day inside out.
Last Sunday, summer thunderstorms were no match for the sixth iteration of the Vendor Expo Series, a fair and mini food truck festival meant to showcase small businesses from across the state and greater New England region. Founded earlier this year by Ryan McCrea, the monthly series aims to highlight independent businesses, including entrepreneurs who are working from their homes, often on limited time, shoestring budgets and a staff of one.
A part-time DJ and business owner, McCrea thinks of the expo series as “throwing a party,” he said. “But instead of it being a party, it’s like a vendor’s party. So, I have a number of vendors around, local businesses, anybody I know, from Connecticut that has a business, I wanted to incorporate them with this.”
McCrea started the series after experiencing frustration himself as an artist and small business owner. With his daughter, Aubrie McCrea, he runs Brie Naturals, a small company that sells candles, room sprays, and bath soaks. After vending in spaces that didn’t feel aligned with their products and mission, McCrea decided to create his own space for others to feel comfortable and confident.
By July’s event, held in Hamden at the Whitneyville Cultural Commons, he had recruited 28 vendors, with food trucks including Beyond The Salt, Cultured Taste, and Bridgeport-based Khemis Vegan Cuisine. While McCrea’s original idea for the series revolved around Connecticut, vendors came from other states around the region, including nearby Massachusetts.
They included Kat Taylor, who is the Springfield-based creator of Mattoon Soap Co. The company, like many, started early in the Covid-19 pandemic, when Taylor moved from Washington, D.C. to the Pioneer Valley region that sits on a Massachusetts-Connecticut border in 2020. After moving, Taylor began to experience allergies that she couldn’t explain, and had never had before. After trying goat milk-based products on her skin, she was encouraged to create and sell them to others.
Top: Kat Taylor, who is the Springfield-based creator of Mattoon Soap Co. Bottom: Illustrator Amanda Rodriguez.
Other vendors came from nearby towns and cities, with products from handcrafted journals and stationary to sweet tea with decades of history behind it. Based out of nearby Milford, illustrator Amanda Rodriguez introduced attendees to her business MadnessInTheMorning, dedicated to highlighting mental health. In one image, a person posed in their bed, still under the covers. In another, a figure held her hands to her throat as if she was choking, a spray of color erupting from her open mouth.
Since graduating with her undergraduate degree in fine art from Paier College, Rodriguez has been displaying and selling her work for the past seven years. Her dream is to be a graphic novelist, she said— but in the meantime, she seeks to create important conversations surrounding mental health with her art.
Stratford-based artist Venita Bledsoe, who has been with the series since its second iteration, welcomed attendees to a table crowded with journals, stationary and other products that features her digital art designs. An artist and photographer, Bledsoe began with drawing and then transitioned to the digital art medium several years ago, she said. More recently she incorporated photography, which is currently her main art medium.
Top: Bledsoe. Bottom: Soul Reviv’ N is the juiced-up brainchild of Kendra Shaver from Westfield, Mass. She started in January 2020, shortly before the pandemic, and said that the secret to her juices is the lack of additives.
“Well, somebody might need what you give to the world and what you can do,” she said. “ You could save somebody, you could bless somebody, or you can inspire somebody. That's all I'm trying to do. Just inspire and change the world and just make sure people don't sleep on what they do. And people just continue to push forward. It could just bring them to the best version of themselves.”
Nearby, people stopped to chat with Latoya Jones, a cosmetologist who branched into product development after developing carpal tunnel and tendonitis from her profession. Now the owner of Urban Empress out of Hamden, Jones develops hair and skin care products.
Like many others at the event, she said, she used both the time and federal relief funding that came through the Covid-19 pandemic as a seed for her business, and has grown slowly from there. Because her mother and children are both sensitive to many commercial and store-bought products, she created her line to be with “clean” products, she said. She added that she advises customers to look at the labels before they buy commercial products.
Top: Bridgeport-based herbalist, reiki healer, yoga instructor, doula, and tarot reader Dayelle Harris. Bottom: Latoya Jones of Urban Empress of Hamden.
Jones was not the only one dedicated to healing at the event: Bridgeport-based herbalist, reiki healer, yoga instructor, doula, and tarot reader Dayelle Harris offered a table so packed with information that it seemed nearly too small to contain everything. After moving to Bridgeport from New York, she has made herself a one-stop shop for handcrafted jewelry, teas, seasonings, oils, butters, soaps, incense, spiritual baths and more.
Elsewhere, vendors offered food for attendees who had worked up an appetite. Beyond guava and pineapple tarts on Shakeema Romero’s table for the Bridgeport-based business Suga & Spice Me, inspired by her Nevisian grandmother, New Haven’s Dank Goodies offered THC-infused lemonade, mac and cheese, and chicken wings.
At the entryway of the event, Gwen McCrea, sold homemade sweet tea based on her mother’s recipe. Giving out tastes for free, McCrea said that Sweet Gs Tea is a labor of love in remembrance of her late mother. It was a free item she shared at every family event, carrying on her mother’s tradition.
BasesLoaded Bullies creator Barry Moore out of New Haven. Moore is an exotic dog breeder specializing in American Bulldogs.
Now she is a vendor in the series, where she sells goods as the small business owner behind Inspirational Creations. She said the name is meant to pay tribute to God, who she thanks for her creative endeavors and her success.
As music and conversation flowed through the space, co-organizer Anthony Tapper remained by McCrea’s side, buzzing from table to table to help the vendors with all of their needs. He said he is deeply proud of what McCrea has created and—just as he has been there since the beginning—will be there for as long as the series runs.
“Anybody got dreams or want to promote their stuff?” he said. “Come on out. Join one of the events that we throw.”