For a long time, craft markets felt like the obvious answer. Make the work. Pack the car. Set up the table. Hope the right people walk past. It was presented as a rite of passage. I did them because it seemed like what you do when you’re serious.
I stopped because they stopped making sense.

The Romance vs the Reality
There’s a comforting narrative around craft markets, one that everyone there follows. The early mornings. The setting up, always the same, a steady calming rhythm. Catch ups with other artists that you only ever see at that fair. The idea that if your work is good enough, it will find its way into the right hands.
The reality is less poetic.
Long days standing still. Fees that quietly eat into already razor thin margins. Weather that dictates your mood and your sales. Conversations that begin and end with ‘I could make that myself’ or ‘That’s lovely, but…’
Over time, the gap between effort and return becomes impossible to ignore.

The Wrong Audience Isn’t a Personal Failure
Craft markets attract people looking for gifts, bargains, or something pleasant to browse on a Saturday. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it isn’t always the right place for the kind of work like mine that sits in the middle ground between art and object.
Explaining your work over and over again to people who aren’t really listening wears you down. Reducing hours, days, weeks of labour into a price someone can compare to mass-produced goods isn’t humbling, it’s exhausting.
Eventually, I realised the problem wasn’t the work. It was the context.

When Making Becomes Performing
At markets, you’re not just selling objects, you’re selling yourself. Your friendliness. Your energy. Your ability to be ‘on’ for eight hours straight. For introverts, for people who need quiet to create, that performance takes more than it gives.
The work started to feel secondary to the transaction. Something to justify the stall rather than the reason for it.
That’s when I knew something had to change.

Choosing Where to Place Your Energy
Giving up on craft markets wasn’t giving up on making. It was choosing to place my energy somewhere it could grow rather than drain.
I started focusing on:
direct relationships with buyers,
exhibitions and collaborative shows,
online spaces that allowed for context and storytelling.
The slower, more intentional ways of sharing the work.
The audience became smaller, but more engaged. Conversations became deeper. The work had room to breathe.

Redefining Success
There’s a quiet pressure to keep doing things that ‘look productive’ even when they no longer align with what you want your practice to be. Craft markets tick a visible box. Walking away from them can feel like failure.
But sometimes success is recognising when something has served its purpose and knowing when to stop.
I didn’t give up because it was hard. I gave up because it wasn’t right anymore.

Letting Go Without Regret
Craft markets taught me a lot. About pricing. About presentation. About talking about my work. I met people and made connections with other artists. I don’t regret doing them.
But I don’t miss them either.
Letting go made space for better-fitting opportunities, ones that value the work without asking it to shout over folding tables and background noise.
Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is step away.