By Thad Williams RUSTON, La.
Every Christmas season, Ruston is host to a series of festive and holiday themed events to engage the community and help celebrate the holidays. On Dec. 4, downtown Ruston was the site of NCLAC's annual Holiday Arts Market.
At this event, a number of local artists and craft makers set up booths to feature their work to sell to the public. Located in the Norton Building, hundreds of people had the chance to attend the event throughout the afternoon.
This event was hosted by the NCLAC (North Central Louisiana Arts Council) and was organized by the Executive Director Madeline Marak. Marak, who is in charge of overseeing many of the events put on by NCLAC, spent months preparing this event to connect with the community and meet the visions of the organization’s board of directors.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic starting in 2020, last year’s Holiday Arts Market was a lot less involved than this year. In order to help connect with the community and give the artists more of a chance to showcase their work, Marak worked hard to make sure that this year had much more of a holiday atmosphere.
“I think most people had a kind of a sigh of relief,” Marak said. “We can get back to some of the things we liked doing before.”
The hard work of Marak and the rest of the NCLAC seemed to pay off for both the vendors selling their work and the people who attended the market.
Kelsie Scharr, a resident of Ruston, attended the Holiday Arts Market after learning through social media that one of her friends was going to be a vendor at the event.
“Overall it was a great experience,” Scharr said. “It definitely added some Christmas joy.”
While looking for seasonal events to attend this month, Scharr saw that this event was giving support to local artists while also being Christmas themed, which gave her and the community something festive to look forward to.
Another attendee, Morgan Mills, also enjoyed getting to go to the market and see some of her favorite artists being featured. In addition to a few personal friends having booths at the event, Mills also talked about how she was able to see a vendor who was selling her son’s work that she bought a piece from last year.
“It was cool to be able to tell him that ‘hey, I have your art in my room and I use it every single day,’” said Mills.
While this event was a fun and festive experience for the people who went shopping, it was also a great success for many of the vendors involved.
Shannan Inman has been featured in the market for several years, and this year provided yet another opportunity to showcase her work. Inman described how the opportunity to do custom calligraphy orders on-site has really helped her gain the interest of the people attending.
Caroline Jones was another vendor at the market who got to showcase and sell some of her handmade gifts and paintings. Jones described how great it felt to be able to communicate with other artists from the area and gain inspiration from them as well.
NCLAC's Holiday Arts Market was a festive way for the community to come together and celebrate the holiday season this year in a creative and supportive way, and many people are looking forward to more events like this in the future.