Mid City Artisans

“Buy Local!” Over the past two pandemic years, the long-shouted rallying call to bolster small-business economies has grown ever louder. While local grocery stores and brick-and-mortar boutiques are obvious choices for consumers to support their neighbors, until recently opportunities to support local artisans in Baton Rouge were largely limited to the monthly MidCity Makers Markets and seasonal community events like White Light Night and Hot Art Cool Nights. Enter artist-proprietors Maria and George Harris, the literal and figurative creative forces behind Mid-City Artisans. This multi-maker consignment art market opened in late April 2021 in the conveniently-located Square 46 multi-use building, joining a burgeoning block of creative spaces, including the future homes of Bistro Byronz’s new location, Frameworks Gallery, and Tap 56, a wine and beer taproom at the corner of Government and Moore streets. 

[Read this story by Kristen Foster, from our September 2020 issue.]

Over the last several years Mid City has emerged as the de facto home of Baton Rouge area creatives. George, a fourth-generation Baton Rougean and Maria, a native of neighboring Ascension Parish, chose the location intentionally; they are both residents and members of the area’s vibrant arts scene. George is a woodworker and repurposed furniture maker, and for many years the couple frequently participated in the area’s various markets. Though creatively rewarding, these events were physically exhausting endeavors for the pair and too infrequent to make the labor intensive process of George’s work worth the sales. It wasn’t long before George and Maria, each retired from careers in computer programming and education respectively, began making plans for a more stationary, consistent point of sale. 

They briefly rented a vendor space inside The Market at the Oasis, which gave them the ability to more permanently display their merchandise. “This let customers more easily imagine how they might style the pieces in their own homes,” Maria, who also has a background in retail, explained. The permanent booth, along with the weekly—as opposed to monthly—frequency of other markets, increased the couple’s sales and allowed their business to survive the worst of the pandemic. However, even with this increased stability, there was still a weekly rental fee for the space, regardless of sales. And their customers continuously expressed to them a desire for more days a week to shop. Identifying a hole in the market, they decided to open Mid-City Artisans. 

“We wanted a place that was open six days a week, with no ongoing fees, where artists could feel comfortable leaving their pieces while we manned the store,” Maria said. This consignment model has allowed their business to grow to include over 120 vendors. Maria, with a keen, artistic eye for color theory, object grouping, and functional furniture arrangement, has skillfully positioned the diverse inventory into the kind of sensorially sumptuous displays a maximalist dreams of. Every available surface offers an irresistible assemblage of expertly-crafted goods. One table displays slices of soap, so bright and fragrant that they almost seem edible. Another supports stacked towers of jars filled with actually edible homemade jams. Wire and stone jewelry glints behind glass in an antique armoire. Tiny origami paper cranes, leaves, and fish dangle as earrings from the arms of a turnstile display. More often than not, the display furniture is also for sale; reclaimed and refinished antiques—including several of George’s own pieces—all have price tags, ensuring a constantly changing aesthetic. And the walls: they are covered nearly floor-to-ceiling by paintings and mixed media works, framed inches apart and ranging in price grandly enough to fit virtually every budget. “We want things to be priced fairly for the artist and the customer,” George explained. One of the few items that exceeds the $1,000 mark is a sculpture of an octopus that, when closely inspected, more than justifies the price. What appears at a distance to be richly-painted plaster is actually made from intricate papier mâché, using tiny scraps of full-color aquatic nature magazines to create the highlights and shadows of the animal’s undulating shape. 

The Harrises offer the space to creatives as a location from which to sell their wares on consignment, without having to sign an exclusivity agreement. But the couple has gone one step further in supporting the local artistic community by expanding their operations into an upstairs gallery and multi-use work and performance space, which has already hosted featured artist shows, poetry readings, and a wide range of classes taught by artisan vendors. Currently, they are also exploring the prospect of offering studio space rental for local artists.

The harmony of George and Maria’s combined efforts have made Mid-City Artisans a home for patrons of local arts as well as artists. With his background in programming, George has built an easily navigable website, where he maintains a regularly-updated calendar of classes as well as a selection of products that can be purchased online. Current classes in wire wrap jewelry, clay hand building, oil, acrylic, and watercolor painting are being offered for older children and adults. Offerings for younger artists have included animation and origami. Further supporting young makers, Mid-City Artisans hosts a quarterly Kids’ Arts Market where artists between the ages of six and seventeen can sell their creations.

Inside the shop, George has also posted QR codes next to many of the items, so shoppers can scan and learn more about each artisan. For her part, Maria’s expertly curated displays and knowledgeable, engaging personality make for a genuinely enjoyable shopping experience. While face-to-face interactions with individual artisans at traditional markets have their merits to many, there is also an undeniable appeal that a more introverted patron will find in being able to leisurely experience each collection without the potential pressures of small talk. And for the first time, Baton Rougeans and visitors have access six days a week to a diverse and entirely-local artisan shopping experience—a place where they can find anything from the origami of Brent Walden to Libby Tobin-Broussard’s paper sculptures, Ashley Andermann’s Grinning Jupiter Jams, to teaching artist Karin Chapman’s wire wrap jewelry and macrame, all while enjoying a complimentary cup of coffee.  

Mid-City Artisans is open Tuesday–Sunday with varying hours. Visit mid-cityartisans.com for a complete calendar of events, including a chance to meet the artisans themselves at White Light Night on November 19.