IYKYK: Surviving Ann Arbor 2026

I'm back from the Ann Arbor Art Fair, IYKYK (if you know, you know).

It's probably the largest art fair in the country, well over 1000 exhibitors that take over downtown Ann Arbor and the campus of the University of Michigan. Actually, it's three shows going on simultaneously to create one big show. This year I changed shows for a few reasons, one of which was a paperwork snafu on my part, and the other is that most of my friends do the Original Show, and I share an Airbnb, plus drive the 10 hours to Michigan, with a friend who's also at that show. It always felt like a bummer to be all alone at a different show. So I applied to the Original Show and switched things up for this year.

I think of the Ann Arbor Art Fair as a long, hot endurance test. It's like real life Survival of the Fittest, Craft Show Edition. Like in the Princess Bride, or any other quest movie where the characters have to climb a mountain to battle a giant, to reach the forest with rodents of unusual size. Ann Arbor always has extreme heat, rainstorms, insanely long hours, massive crowds, and this year we added in some pea soup wildfire smoke. It's always a good time, lol. I'm thankful that even with all the obstacles, patrons still came out, and I had a successful show!

Crowds were way down this year, understandably, nobody wants to shop for art while breathing what felt like a campfire that never ends. But here's the thing about the people who did show up despite the apocalyptic smoke: they meant business. These weren't casual lookers killing time between food trucks. They knew what they wanted, and they were ready to buy it.

And then there was the actual best part of the show. I won an inaugural Creative Sustainability Award, one is given out at each of the three Ann Arbor shows, celebrating artists who are pushing sustainability forward through their creative work and their process. Considering my entire studio practice is built around not melting anything, not wasting anything, and turning what most people think of as scrap into something someone wants to wear forever, this one felt personal.

So yes, the smoke was biblical. Today it feels like I smoked a pack of unfiltered cigarettes. But I came home with an award that actually means something to me, and a bunch of new collectors who braved a genuine apocalypse to find me. I'd call that a win.

To everyone who braved the smoke to find me, thank you. Turns out the epic movie-like quest through the fire-swamp was worth it after all.