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As the first warm sunrays tickle the streets of South Philadelphia, area residents are looking forward to everything the new season brings: Farmer’s markets, the “Italian Market Festival” and many more events. This year’s lineup has a new addition that will be setting up shop around the Tasker Street Fountain, ushered in by Jessup-and-Morris-streets resident Amy Blasco.
“I didn’t see anything like [a hand-crafted arts fair] in the area. I knew that there were people interested in it in the area. There were stores like Sweet Jane that had a little sort of art opening or showed some work, but I didn’t see anything substantial and I know there are a lot of creative people in the area and I wanted an outlet and I wanted them to come and see everyone else’s work,” the jewelry maker said.
What came of her observations is Crafty Balboa, a boutique-style art fair that consists of vendor-operated booths where local artists can showcase and sell their crafts. With three under her belt — the first of which was part of 2009’s DooWop Car Show and Street Festival — Blasco is gearing up for the fourth installment noon to 5 p.m. April 24.
“DooWop got completely rained out, as did all of us standing under our tents!” Blasco said at her first attempt to stage the event supported by the East Passyunk Avenue Business Improvement District. “We did it Sept. 12 — it actually ended up being about half the vendors … There were a lot of people walking through and I had a lot of people come up to me and say, ‘Are you doing this every week?’ Lots of artists coming up and asking when was the next event.”
“April Showers,” as this weekend’s fourth event is ironically monikered, will have approximately 35 vendors from around the area and outside of Philadelphia setting up booths at Tasker Street and Passyunk Avenue.
“I make jewelry. I have two different types of jewelry, mainly really fun, bight colorful enamel pieces and laser-cut and engraved acrylic jewelry. For ‘Crafty,’ I brought more of my enamel things,” Blasco, whose event will feature everything from handmade clothing and jewelry to photography to bath and body products, said. “I tried to pick a really good selection of people with quality work that I find interesting.”
Original promotions for last year’s event, which were aptly boxing-themed, flew off local stores shelves and led Blasco to feel she had stumbled on something exciting to area residents.
“I’ve been really surprised — with the first show we had in the area, it was mainly foot traffic and I was surprised at how much foot traffic [there] was,” the 26-year-old said. “My third event was in Center City … I did a lot of marketing down here for it because I wanted to bring the same customers out, wanted them to know we were still alive and doing this.
“And I had people e-mailing me saying, ‘Can you drop more [flyers] off? They’re gone. Can I give you my menu, my business cards?’ It’s obvious people in the area are interested in this.
Blasco was raised in Northeastern Pennsylvania, around Scranton, from which she commuted two hours by bus weekly to attend classes at Moore College of Art & Design.
“I started coming to Philadelphia when I was 15 to take art classes at Moore. A lot of drawing classes … I’d come down every Saturday morning,” Blasco said. “Basically I came when I was comfortable enough to get on a bus by myself.”
Blasco had always let her creative streak shine and she chose to continue her studies at the University of the Arts after high school, focusing on crafts — specifically jewelry and medals.
“After I graduated the University of the Arts, I went to New York to study at the Gemological Institute of America to study diamonds,” Blasco, who later worked at various fine jewelry stores for a few years, said.
Boring of the luxury retail life, Blasco sought further educational opportunities and focused her search on European institutions. She was accepted to the Creative Academy in Milan, Italy, where she received a full scholarship and spent a year learning the finer points of luxury design with an emphasis on accessories.
“I had been in a program before in Florence and I studied Italian and photography,” Blasco said.
Her time abroad secured her a post-graduate internship in Paris with Van Cleef and Arpels where she spent three months working on special orders, designing from the pre-existing collection.
Moving back State-side, her South Philly neighborhood was a natural choice.
“’Cause I came from Milan — It was South Philly, I mean, how Italian can you get?” Blasco, who lived in an apartment at Passyunk and Moore Street before moving to her current townhome that she shares with her boyfriend and dog, said. “There was such an Italian vibe in the area.
“We had a lot of friends in the area, we were familiar with it.”
The finished basement in her current spot is the perfect studio for her handcrafted designs and freelance work for a Port Richmond company that specializes in men’s accessories.
“I really like that [South Philadelphia] has such an array of people, young people, it’s just an eclectic group of people that really work together. I really like that there was a sense of community,” Blasco said. “In the area things were happening.
“In the area there was a lot of new coming in and there still is to this day, which is so nice to see — that everything here has been here for a long time, we are still traditional and it’s sort of this two worlds coming together.”
One of the additions to the area, thanks to Blasco, is Crafty Balboa, which the founder hopes to keep going for many years and incorporate into the pre-existing South Philadelphia mainstays like “DooWop” or the “Italian Market Festival.”
“I think that is the reason that I like Crafty Balboa so much: It has the ability to change and each event is entirely different depending on the people coming in and the crafters coming in. It will be forever evolving and changing. Maybe we’ll have food and music, maybe we’ll have it where it’s like a workshop.
“I don’t want to put it in a box and say what it is. I want to let it evolve on its own.”
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