Students at the Maine College of Art and Design (MECAD) are transforming their artistic skills into business ventures as they prepare for two upcoming holiday markets in downtown Portland. Katie Clark, a sophomore studying ceramics, exemplifies the common challenge many artists face when her pottery collection outgrew her available space. "Ceramics really collect," Clark said with a laugh, explaining how selling her work at this year's Holiday Sale offers a practical solution while providing her first market experience.
The first weekend of December will see the annual Holiday Sale transform the Porteous Building on Congress Street into a bustling marketplace featuring 75 vendors, including current students, alumni, and faculty. Simultaneously, a class will operate a pop-up shop at the college's experimental storefront at 49 Oak Street throughout the first week of December. These markets serve as crucial learning experiences where young artists develop essential skills to balance creativity with commercial success in their future careers.
Evelyn Wong, an adjunct assistant professor who teaches printmaking and book arts, is leading the innovative "Art of Selling Out" course this semester, which focuses specifically on the economics and logistics of selling artwork. Wong's students are responsible for running the pop-up shop, gaining hands-on experience in retail operations. "This is information I wish I could have learned when I was a student," Wong explained, highlighting the gap in business education traditionally found in art programs.
During a recent class session, Wong unlocked the door to 49 Oak Street and guided students inside as they carried bins of handmade items and bags of winter decorations. The professor asked about window design plans, prompting two students to volunteer for the creative task. Throughout the semester, Wong has shared personal experiences of balancing wholesale accounts and gallery exhibitions while encouraging students to research artists in their chosen fields and retailers in their hometowns.
The curriculum includes practical visits to local art venues, such as a book fair for small publishers at Mechanics Hall, where students observe real-world applications of their studies. Wong also arranged for a friend to demonstrate his wholesale catalog, emphasizing that "these are actual members of our community who are living off their art." Students learn to create marketable items including handmade notebooks with various binding techniques, personalized zines, and letterpress prints.
Pricing strategies form a crucial component of the course, with Wong teaching students formulas for calculating costs based on time invested and materials used. "It's an icky subject for a lot of artists to think about money, to talk about money," Wong acknowledged. "But it's also very real." Hannah Holt, a senior sculpture major working on the shop window with chalk markers, enrolled in the class to prepare for post-graduation life, appreciating the transparency about financial matters typically avoided in artistic circles.
Jenny McGee Dougherty, now director of the college's Artists at Work program, recalls her own student experience selling handmade craft boxes at the Holiday Sale. She currently organizes the event, which attracts as many as 4,000 visitors during the weekend and represents "one of the very few events we have per year where the public can come into the building and see the magic that happens in here." Approximately three-quarters of vendors are alumni, while students participate without fees and can set up individually or in groups.
The event features diverse student initiatives, including photography students operating a photo booth and animation and game art students hosting an arcade to fund professional development trips. "We've been really focusing a lot of our efforts on giving more opportunities to try these things," McGee explained, emphasizing the college's commitment to practical business education for artists.
Jaden Kyung-Moon Bauch, a 22-year-old Portland resident who graduated earlier this year with a painting major and art and entrepreneurship minor, transformed financial challenges into expertise. An unexpected dental bill during college motivated her to study personal finance, leading to her current dual career as a painter and financial coach for creative professionals while pursuing certification as a financial planner. "Students really want the knowledge," Bauch observed. "They want to be financially successful."
Bauch travels to art schools providing guidance to students who "might mistrust certain financial professionals, or they don't know where to look, or they don't know how to find resources that are designed for artists." Her advice to first-time vendors emphasizes patience and persistence: "Your first time vending at a market, it is quite possible that you will make no money. Don't get discouraged in the beginning."
Joshua Harkins, a sophomore studying animation and game art, brings experience from a year of First Fridays events to the Holiday Sale, where he'll sell stickers, prints, and pins alongside a friend. His journey illustrates the learning curve involved in art sales: "I definitely had to learn that just because something isn't selling, that doesn't say anything about your art or your product. It just tells you that you need to change things up a bit."
Harkins discovered that shoppers prefer familiar subjects over unknown characters, leading him to focus on recognizable themes like penguins, which have proven particularly popular. Friends encouraged him to raise his sticker prices and implement sliding scales for prints, while the experience has built his confidence in social interactions. "I've always had trouble just talking to random people," he admitted. "That has helped."
Clark, the ceramics student whose space constraints initiated her market journey, has been creating mugs, vases, and candlestick holders for the sale. However, she maintains artistic integrity alongside commercial considerations: "I don't want to only be making work that I think is going to sell." Instead, she views the sale as an opportunity to experiment with new shaping, glazing, and firing techniques, treating it as "just another chance to learn."
The Holiday Sale will take place December 5-6 at 522 Congress Street in Portland, running Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with additional information available at meca.edu/holiday-sale/. The Art of Selling Out pop-up shop will operate December 1-7 at 49 Oak Street, open Sundays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., with an opening reception scheduled for Thursday evening.
