How would you describe your style?  Are there any artists / designers that you particularly look up to? 
I still look up to some of the big ceramic artists, Tom Coleman, Matt Long, Tom Turner, John Britt, and Frank Massarella, who taught me.  I feel as if my style in an amalgamation of how their work inspires and intrigues me.  With each session of production I feel as if my work becomes more and more refined.  I love to pair that refining process with new shapes, new glazes, and new design ideas.

What is your creative process like?
There are two distinctive processes that provide me with a nice creative flow.  Music and/or podcasts can inspire me any number of ways.  It allows me to concentrate with a tempo or rhythm.  They other process is silence which allows me to focus solely on feeling of being centered. 

What's the coolest artistic tip you've ever received? 
You have to have the ‘fire’ inside you to be serious about being a professional potter.

What do you feel makes your work unique and truly your own? 
I feel as if I have a relationship with the clay I use.  When you've thrown hundreds, thousands of the same or similar shapes, there is an intuitive representation of form.  Over a few years I've refined every minute detail within the process.  My work is unique in the very fact that my hands create every individual piece, every handle, etc.  I love creating work with passion and I believe the attention to detail enriches each piece. 

What sort of things inspire you?  Where do you look for inspiration? 
Looking at what other artists are creating is a good source of inspiration.  For design, I like to imagine what would enhance certain experiences involving clay.  Colors and shapes depending on any particular kind of salad, shape and thickness of a ramen bowl, the perfect coffee mug for a very specific set of hands, a properly constructed fermentation jar.  

I feel most creative in the early morning.  Waking up early gives me a sense of isolation, you don't tend to hear cars, or people walking around.  This solitude allows creativity to be uninterrupted as the repetition of throwing inspires rhythm and flow.   

More about me on my website: jeffreyryanmay.com      Which has links to other sites with more information.

How would you describe your style?  Are there any artists / designers that you particularly look up to?
My style has evolved a lot over time. I’m currently finding myself drawn to more modern, minimalistic design than ever before, particularly as it applies to home décor and fashion design.

I have so many favorite artists. Even when I was primarily a painter, my favorite artists were usually sculptors like Anish Kapoor, Anthony Gormley and Cornelia Parker.

What do you feel makes your work unique and truly your own? 
I tend to work in traditional mediums like oil paint and plaster; materials which wouldn’t be considered unique. However, the ideas are unique and individual to me. I always strive to make something I’ve truly never seen before, but now, more than ever, within a contemporary design context.

What sort of things inspire you?  Where do you look for inspiration?
I will always be most inspired by nature; it’s the one connecting thread that has remained constant in all of my work. I love looking at landscape photography and contemporary takes on landscape painting. I’ve spent a lot of time on Pinterest in the last year. It’s such a great source for fine art and design imagery. I also frequently visit popular art and design blogs like ‘The Jealous Curator’ and ‘This is Colossal.’

When do you feel the most creative?
When I’m alone with my thoughts, listening to great music.

What is your creative process like?
I’m a big believer in going out and finding your inspiration. It’s always out there waiting for you. I can’t just sit around hoping an idea will pop into my head. I believe you have to look at as much as possible, constantly sifting through imagery until something begins to speak to you.

Where can we learn more about you?  
Follow me on instagram or facebook: 
instagram.com/waterstonesucculents
facebook.com/waterstonesucculents

Shop Waterstone Succulents at Jackalope Art & Craft Fair on July 25th & 26th at EXDO Event Center.

What do you feel makes your work unique and truly your own? 
I began creating natural jewelry years ago, when my husband's family decided to sell their beloved cabin above Poudre Canyon. I looked for a tangible way to hold on to the memory of the property, and began collecting small, beautiful artifacts that, when placed together, reconstructed a story about the cabin and what it means to be nourished by a place. 

Since then, I have used my craft as a way to polish my experiences in nature --juxtaposing materials possessing their own, divergent stories to create a piece with a single, unified future. I have seen that everyone finds their own meaning in these pieces--whether through attachment to the physical locations housing the raw materials, the sentimentality of a kind of wood or stone, or the mere tying together of different histories. Thus, each piece is as unique in form as it is in meaning.

What sort of things inspire you?  Where do you look for inspiration?
A good, old fashioned walk in the woods is the best inspiration, but particularly when I have a thought-provoking book by my side. Nature writers like John Muir, Wallace Stegner, Ellen Meloy, and Terry Tempest Williams have a way of illuminating the seemingly mundane aspects of our relationship with the world and making them instrumental to our understanding of it. My work operates in similar ways, encouraging both me and the wearer to reconsider what we know and feel about our natural surroundings.

When do you feel the most creative?
Walking in the woods outside my house in Breckenridge is the surest way to get me excited about creating. I love finding gnarled pieces of deadfall and wondering about the grain patterns that lay inside. Any time I'm out collecting lichens, too, I am anxious to be back in my shop, pairing them with new woods to see what makes each specimen come alive in a new relationship. The process of creating is equally exciting, allowing me to pair wood and lichens based on their complementary organic patterns.

Where can we learn more about you?  
My website, www.thelichenist.com, is a great way to learn about the materials I use and why I get so fired up about them. Follow me on Tumblr @thelichenist to gain insight into my daily inspirations and creative process.

Shop Lichenology at Jackalope Art & Craft Fair on July 25th & 26th at EXDO Event Center.

We are a mother daughter business and also have a pet bakery! We make all natural gluten free treats for you dog or cat!

How would you describe your style?  
We offer modern, contemporary styles for our pet feeders. Clean and simple lines.

What do you feel makes your work unique and truly your own? 
We offer numerous different size feeders so we can custom fit to the height of your pet. As our pets age this is particularly important due to instability and arthritis but elevated feeders also aid digestion.

What sort of things inspire you?
Going for walks and hikes with our dogs, especially when we can make it to the ocean. 

When do you feel the most creative?
In a quiet room, with my pets and beautiful bouquet of flowers!

What's the coolest artistic tip you've ever received?
Be original and purposeful

Where can we learn more about you?
www.trendypet.com

www.sweetpeakitchens.com

Shop Trendy Pet at Jackalope Art & Craft Fair on July 25th & 26th at EXDO Event Center.

How would you describe your style?  

My stuff appeal to turtles, mostly. Humans like the stuff sometimes too, but most of the time it's just because they want to show their turtle the work because they know the their turtle will enjoy it. 

What do you feel makes your work unique and truly your own? 
I think maybe the fact that it appeals so much to turtles is pretty unique. 

What sort of things inspire you?  Where do you look for inspiration?
I am inspired by the realization that if all of this doesn't work out I will be completely screwed, as I don't have any real skills in the workplace. That inspires me to keep doing this well.

When do you feel the most creative?
Probably in the morning and late at night. It really depends on the day. The creative ebb/flow is really inconsistent. I really just try and capture the artistic flow whenever it hits.

What is your creative process like?
It really depends on the project. But I would say coffee and exercise play a big role in stimulating my creativity and keeping me engaged and productive.

What's the coolest artistic tip you've ever received?
Probably to just keep making stuff and turn off the fear and insecurity. It will never be as good as you want/envision, so the pressure is off, in a way. I enjoy just creating and having fun with it all.

Where can we learn more about you?  
My website, www.mountainvsplains.com, would give you some more insight perhaps. 

Shop Mountain vs Plains at Jackalope Art & Craft Fair on July 25th & 26th at EXDO Event Center.

I describe my design style as earthy chic with a rustic glamorous vibe. I am naturally drawn to very raw stones and I think that is attributed to the fact that my husband and I have a daughter, Mo, who graduated with a Geology degree. We were always collecting rocks when she was growing up! She gave me the love of "earthy" gems and each piece of jewelry that I make comes with the history and metaphysical properties of the elements used in the design. 

Megan, my oldest daughter, is my source of all things "color" and texture! She is a self-taught, and very accomplished acrylic artist, who paints with an extremely cheerful and vibrant style. She pushes me to get out of my comfort zone by mixing metals, textures and colors together in ways that I would not have thought of on my own. 

I'm certainly inspired by my family, but nature also gives me a boost to the creative process. Whether I'm on a walk with my dog, or a marathon course with Megan (we've completed 7), I find ideas and think about new designs. I want each piece to be meaningful. For example, I've just recently produced some hammered metal necklaces called "Stepping Stones" that were inspired by polished river rocks along a mountain stream. The name Stepping Stones" can symbolize a way to move forward, or heal, or reach our goals. I like to solder three beads onto the metal cutout to represent mind, body and spirit, but some people have customized them for number of children, anniversary dates, numerology, and so on.

I've also started hammering some new rings in Brass, Copper, and Sterling Silver. They are a wide band with a simple, yet dramatic, diagonal cutout and they are named "Pathway" rings. Megan and I were on a marathon course in Couer d'Alene, Idaho when we started talking about letting go of control and letting the path choose us, instead of the other way around. I think a lot of people can relate to jewelry with meaning. It makes a piece very special and can be a fantastic gift for someone. 

You can find other examples of my work on my website at www.StorytellingStrands.com and there is a link to my Etsy shop on that site, as well. Not everything is listed because I'd rather spend time making things that I can show at events like the Jackalope Art Fair!!!

Shop Storytelling Strands at Jackalope Art & Craft Fair on July 25th & 26th at EXDO Event Center.

How would you describe your style?  Are there any artists / designers that you particularly look up to?
Illustrative and boldly minimal.  Salvador Dali has always been an inspiration. More recent ones include Frank Kozik, Coop and Tara McPherson.

What do you feel makes your work unique and truly your own?
We try to keep a consistent point of view with creative choices. The subject matter usually tells its own little story, so I let it. 

What sorts of things inspire you?  
The vanishing world of our youth and the promises it held. Inspiration comes through in all sorts of ways...books, music, movies and the world around us.

When do you feel the most creative? 
Usually starting at about 10 pm.

What is your creative process like?
We start with sketches in pencil on a notepad or sketch paper, then refine the ideas in about three more stages of drawing. When all the mistakes possible have been made and fixed, we ink the drawing. Then scan the drawing into photoshop and clean it up for printing.

What's the coolest artistic tip you've ever received?
Pay attention to proportion, contrast and variation of line weight. These fundamentals give support to all your following choices.

Fix your drawing problems before you turn them into painting problems.

Where can we learn more about you?
Countercouturedesign.com

Shop Counter Couture at Jackalope Art & Craft Fair on July 25th & 26th at EXDO Event Center.

How would you describe your style?  Are there any artists / designers that you particularly look up to?
I would say my work is a rustic, modern combination. 

What sort of things inspire you?  Where do you look for inspiration?
I am inspired by my every day, my life! I have the opportunity to experience so many people, places, ideas, and adventures, all of which I completely adore. With in each of those I find unique inspirations. 

When do you feel the most creative?
Ahh... in the mountains. Smile.

What is your creative process like?
My process starts with a 14ft. piece of wood and ends up with a handful of smaller pieces of art work. Creating the original paintings, grinding and sanding the wood, cutting it all up and transferring my paintings involves a lot of hands on kind of love. By the end of the entire process it most definitely feels like a very unique and custom piece of art. I love every step!

What's the coolest artistic tip you've ever received?
Enjoy the process of what you do most. 

Where can we learn more about you?
http://www.sage8studio.com
www.facebook.com/sage8studio
www.instagram.com/sage8studio

Shop Sage 8 Studio at Jackalope Art & Craft Fair on July 25th & 26th at EXDO Event Center.

How would you describe your style?  Are there any artists / designers that you particularly look up to?
Contemporary style, vintage construction. Our style really comes from the artistic side of our personalities. I'm an artist by trade, so I always match our fabrics based on a lot of color theory and pattern complements. Chris is a ceramicist, so he's always striving for better construction and paying attention to those little tiny details.

We combine the two to make an incredibly unique, but contemporary fashioned product.  Our favorite aspect, however, is our vintage construction. We make everything on a pair of 1950s Singer Featherweight sewing machines that were hand-me-downs from my great-grandmother. Beyond that, we spent an entire year studying tie making, making sure we do it how old world tailors do. Of course we add a bit of our own personality, but we like to think we combine the old and the new world of men's accessories.

As far as inspiration goes, I've been really drawn to the craft movement, not even just with clothing, but everywhere. There's a rebirth and renaissance of everything from food and liquor to painting and clothing. I've drawn inspiration from local companies like
Leopold Bros to other accessory companies like Shwood Eyewear.

What do you feel makes your work unique and truly your own?
It has to be the machines. They each weigh around 11 lbs and are probably some of the smallest machines anyone has ever seen. They're old, but they're little workhorses. Our primary machine made it through hundreds of hours of work before it needed any maintenance. People always ask why we still use them because newer machines are so much easier and faster. I just tell them that that's all I've ever known. We take pride in the fact that that's all we use.

When do you feel the most creative?
Whenever Chris and I start looking for materials or go fabric shopping, we start to get a lot of ideas. Looking at different patterns and colors gives us that little spark we need to make something new. We also like to go around to different thrift shops and vintage stores in town and get inspiration. We see how older things were made and we get a lot of ideas for how to incorporate their design into what we already make. We actually modeled our tie packaging on an old '40s tie that we found in a vintage store down on Broadway.

What is your creative process like?
The entire process is pretty methodical and detailed. To make a tie, there are five essential steps: cutting, stitching, forming, hand sewing, and, what we like to call, 'the details.' We try to work in waves for larger orders, doing one step at a time, but if we need to work fast, we'll do an assembly line style process. I'll cut and then Chris will stitch, so on and so forth. We end up getting a good enough groove that we can knock out a lot of product in a pretty small amount of time. After that, we package everything in our hand cut packaging that we make and design in house.

When we're working, we'll either watch a cooking show marathon or listen to hours of stand-up comedy, coupled with what we call 'tie beers.'  If we have a late night of working, we'll get a six pack and just enjoy it while we work together. We've been best friends since we were five years old, so it reminds us that we're not just working, but we're hanging out and having fun too.

What's the coolest artistic tip you've ever received?
My lithography professor in college always had a mantra that I loved: "I look good. I feel good. I am successful." It isn't exactly an artistic tip, but what it told me was to make sure I'm in the right mood to start working and creating. Whenever I paint or draw, I always have music on that I can zone out to. The same is true for Chris and I when we work.

As any artist knows it is very easy to look at your own work and only see the flaws, while others either don't notice them or even think they add something to the piece. Sometimes little imperfections can be what attract you to an object; you might be looking through a stack
of identical shirts and you end up choosing the one with a random extra strip
of color.

We have a desire to be unique and different which is part of why handmade products are so popular. In an episode of *Parks and Recreation*, Ron Swanson is making wooden chairs and abruptly smashes one because, "It was too perfect. It looked machine-made." We're both perfectionists so Chris likes to reference this any time we find a defect, because otherwise we would obsess over it.

Where can we learn more about you?
You can learn more about our work and our story on our website at himclothing.com.

Shop HIM Clothing at Jackalope Art & Craft Fair on July 25th & 26th at EXDO Event Center.

What do you feel makes your work unique and truly your own? 

We craft an old-fashioned style jerky in a range of flavor profiles updated to the contemporary palette. The authentic style comes from our simple process which highlights traditional cooking methods and the handmade touch in every step. The handmade component of our process allows us to focus on quality, consistency, and character. We constantly explore new spices and marinades from around the world and love to test new flavor profiles.

What sort of things inspire you?  Where do you look for inspiration?

I think a lot about tradition, history, and heritage. They are the cornerstones of our business, but they also hold personal significance for me as I continue the legacy of our family business as the fourth generation. To find inspiration, I often look to what those have done before me. Wether it’s the boldness of my great grandfather, work ethic of my grandfather, or foresight and vision of my dad, I can usually find inspiration for the future by looking to the past. 

What is your creative process like?

We take great pride in our process. It is testament to our tradition. We have purposely retained the handmade element in each step of our process. It is our way of preserving tradition, remembering our history, and ensuring the highest quality product. Simply put, things are done better by hand. 

What's the coolest artistic tip you've ever received?

One of my dad’s favorite sayings is that you can’t be all things to all people and I think he’s exactly right. We create a product that we like to eat and that we believe in. If people share that vision and taste, then great, if not, no worries. But we can’t compromise what we do to follow trends and fads. At the end of the day we answer to nobody but ourselves. 

Where can we learn more about you?  

Visit our website at peopleschoicebeefjerky.com to learn more about our story and see all our meaty products.