Adorned with fresh wreaths, glowing lights and colorful window displays, downtown Concord looks a little different this winter.
For the first holiday season in a decade and a half, Concord Handmade won’t be setting up shop, a difficult decision for Alison Murphy, its founder and organizer since 2011.
The holiday pop-up market graced different vacant downtown storefronts over the years, bringing with it the opportunity to buy gifts from anywhere between 30 and 60 New England artists.
“The downtown and creative community in Concord just cares so much about buying things locally and making sure that they are taking care of their community and the artists in their community,” she said. “I really found that it was always really important for people to know the story behind what they were buying.”
Murphy’s business, Penumbra, which she owns with her wife, Alyssa McClary, opened a new location in Goffstown two years ago. Ultimately, running two stores plus a pop-up shop stopped feeling feasible to her.
“I don’t necessarily know that Concord Handmade is over-over,” she said. “I just think it’s over in the iteration that it has been for the last 14 years. So I think that’s sort of what I think about next, is like, maybe the next person who does something like this, maybe I can help to guide them through the process, because we couldn’t have done Concord Handmade for so long without Concord.”
Murphy began Concord Handmade at age 26 with the goal of creating “an extended craft fair” open almost daily throughout November and December.
She would rent an empty storefront for a couple of months each year and sell artists’ work on consignment. Rather than having stalls, she organized each iteration of the shop according to the type of item, from jewelry, clothing, pottery and more. After the pandemic, the pop-up moved to Penumbra, which opened in 2020.
Murphy playfully calls Concord Handmade her “baby.”
“I feel like I grew up with it, like I figured out how to communicate with people and how to interface with the public and run this business and take things that matter to me on a really personal level and share them with the community,” Murphy said.
Artist Heidi Pauer first stumbled upon Concord Handmade during its first year in a storefront on the corner of Main Street and Pleasant Street.
The next year, she began selling her own jewelry at the pop-up, and she continued to do so for the rest of Concord Handmade’s existence.
“It was really what catapulted my business. It was wonderful to have it in the community in which I live,” Pauer said.
Both as a customer and an artist, she enjoyed the creative dynamic that Concord Handmade brought to the city.
“There was a little bit of mystery of like, ‘Where is it going to be this year?’ And that’s always kind of fun, that predictable unpredictability,” said Pauer, who runs the art business Kind Finds.
Participating in the holiday shop changed Pauer’s relationship with the creative community around her.
“Through Concord Handmade and through Alison, I have felt much more connected to all the small businesses in downtown,” she said. “There’s just such a collaboration between that. I met so many amazing artists and makers through that collaboration. So it was more than just selling my items. It was the widening of my community in my hometown, which was amazing.”
For Murphy, the absence of Concord Handmade this year, while keenly felt, leaves room to “experience other people’s creative endeavors.” She’s not sure what’s next for her.
“I feel like I’m a little bit more embracing the season in just a different way, because now I get to really see how it is as a customer, instead of as the shopkeep,” she said.