This year’s Crafty Crawl featured everything from colorful crochet stuffed dinosaurs to wooden six pack containers meant to hold beer – but it’s the items with imperfections that attract the most attention.

MadCap Brew Co., Bell Tower Brewing Co. and North Water Brewing Co. held their second annual Crafty Crawl Sunday, which is a craft and craft beer sale that spans across the three locations.

The imperfect pottery displayed at Fred Ketler Pottery booth at the Bell Tower Brewing Company attracted a good amount of attention from customers.

Fred Ketler, owner and creator of Fred Ketler Pottery, explained how his time as a Kent student led to his love of pottery and its imperfections.

“I had a great professor,” Ketler said. “His name was Kirk Mangus. He was in the ceramics department. He really impressed me a lot with some of his work. Still today, it’s in my work also.”

Ketler motioned to the mugs on the shelf behind as he talked about Mangus’ perspective on featuring imperfections in his work.

“It’s more like the organic sort of look on some of my mugs, like I don’t make them perfectly symmetrical, they’re kind off, they’re a little wonky,” Ketler said. “[Mangus] would make pieces and put handles on them and the handles sometimes weren’t even functional.”

Crafty Crawl also functioned as an event for newer artists and vendors’ work to gain public appeal.

While Fred Ketler has sold his work at previous craft sales, this was the first time his daughter Fannie Ketler, a sophomore studio art major, sold her work at such an event.

“This is the first time I’m trying to sell paintings,” Fannie said. “I’ve sold paintings on my own but never at a show like this.” 

The vendors present at the breweries felt Kent residents and students were more interested in buying their works compared to other areas.

Fannie, whose paintings draw from American Tradition and New Traditional with a tattoo style, finds interest amongst Kent’s younger, college age community members.

“Most of the people that I’ve met on campus so far have approached me because I’m a physically tattooed person so there’s a draw to a younger audience,” Fannie said.

The clientele is another prominent reason vendors were eager to return to the crawl.

Vendors like Brittany Davis, owner and creator of Blooming Seed Cards, credited her success to the Crafty Crawl audience and the crawl itself.

“I truly believe it was one of the reasons that I was on Fox 8’s New Day Cleveland,” Davis said. “A lot of people who have been here have actually noticed that I was on there and brought up and have recognized me from past events.”

Davis also said the event was a great way to promote her business.

“It’s been a great networking tool to get the name of my business out there,” she said.

MadCap Brew Co., Bell Tower Brewing Co. and North Water Brewing Co. not only hosted the event to benefit vendors but also to help each of their businesses.

Bridget Tipton, owner of Bell Tower and member of the Main Street Kent board, explained how Crafty Crawl is mutually beneficial for vendors and breweries alike.

“So we’re doing it on a Sunday, which is a slow day for most restaurants,” Tipton said. “But we’re also doing it in the middle of summer so it gives a high boost to these vendors who do most of their business around holiday time and the end of the year.”

Breweries and vendors both received exposure from the crawl.

“We love this event because a lot of people who don’t know us get to come out, and they also get to learn about a lot of small businesses that they might not already know,” Tipton said.

The appeal of getting to know businesses and the current power outages inspired Kent residents like Erin Ackers to return to the crawl. 

“I was just looking for something to do this afternoon, I still don’t have power, and it was a lovely walk-through last year,” Ackers said. “I figured this would be a good place to occupy my time and look for a birthday gift for a friend.”

The idea of shopping locally is what many vendors like Samantha Hudson, owner and creator of Snow., which sells handmade crochet stuffed-animals, had hoped people would take away from this event.

“It’s really important to support artists in general, so when events like this happen we really rely on people to show up and support,” Hudson said. “We really appreciate it when they do.” 

Adriana Gasiweski is a staff reporter. Contact her at [email protected].