We are open Monday September 5th, 2022

 Labor Day weekend is upon us.  We don’t know about you, but our summer seems to have flown by.  We continue to celebrate the 45^th year of the iconic Mower’s Saturday Sunday flea market in Woodstock, N.Y.   We are open Sept 3, Sept 4, and Monday Sept. 5^th in case you are lingering in town before the vacation is over and the back-to-school schedules begin.  As always, up to date information can be found at 845-679-6744 and at #mowerssaturdayfleamarket on Instagram and FB.  Thanks for being a fan!  See you at the market, at the corner of Deanies Alley and Maple Lane in Woodstock, N.Y

Franne first started setting up at the flea market almost 25 years ago. Her booth was filled with her featured items, vintage housewares and a wonderful collection of the most beautiful tea pots. We had a good laugh when Franne  recalled that I purchased a set of beautiful cobalt blue candle sticks to give to our daughter as a bridal shower gift.  In those early years, she would drive up from Rockland county most Saturdays.  Eventually her set up grew to include books, housewares and a large VHS collection.  As the years went by, Franne lived closer to Woodstock, her items for sale changed from VHS to DVD collections and vintage clothing.   As we have emerged from pandemic selling, Franne has changed her booth once again to fine vintage clothing, a curated book selection  and a specialty item, vintage kimonos.  She is able to alter and repair any damaged kimonos that she may purchase.  Franne has an amazing eye for color and her booth has a beautiful red, purple, blue and yellow vibe to it.  You can find her most Saturdays down the Maple lane side of the flea, on the  inside corner. 

 

Ceramicist Olga at Mower's Saturday Sunday Flea market

 

When Olga was accepted at the Cleveland Art Institute for study, her intended medium to work in was  glass blowing. When her family relocated to Poughkeepsie, N.Y. she resumed her studies at SUNY New Paltz and found that clay gave her the challenge and satisfaction she was seeking in her creative life. As it turned out, the clay gives Olga an opportunity to work three dimensionally. The pieces she creates can either blend into the new owner’s life both with form and function or the piece can become a center or focal point for the space it inhabits.

Olga first started selling her ceramic ware at Mower’s flea market in Woodstock, N.Y. in 2015. She is set up most Saturday and Sundays throughout the season. Olga notes that she especially likes interacting with her customers at the flea market.  For inspiration Olga draws on her knowledge about mythology and ritual art of ancient times.  Part of her philosophical process in art is the concept of not following the laws and rules of nature. Her created objects are a result of her ability to work beyond assumed boundaries of thought.  Stop by at the flea to see and touch her one-of-a-kind functional ceramic food ware and her ceramic figures  in person.

Sarah and Wilder Leather- Celebrating her second season on Maple Lane

 

Sarah was kind enough to write out her amazing answers to our questions 

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN SETTING UP:

i'm delighted to be in my second season selling handmade leather goods at Mower's Flea Market in Woodstock. last year i was WILDSTOCK LEATHER, and this year, midseason, i've decided to rebrand my leather endeavor as WILDER LEATHER. while WILDSTOCK was a great mashup of where I live/work with what I'm about, WILDER, my last name, feels spot-on essential given what i'm doing with the medium – though i'll always feel like a WILDSTOCK'er at heart.

 A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHAT YOU MAKE:

as WILDER LEATHER, i handcraft leather goods with gusto in my little studio-shed in Woodstock (NY.) my leather practice is part cacophonic vortex, part diagonal dot connectings, part nitty gritty. i began with bracelets, my first leather love, and have since branched out, in order of manifestation, to pouches, wallets, bags, beltbags, belt/bag hybrids, belts, skillet handle covers (an unexpected way to utilize scraps!), and most recently lightweight earrings ¬– all with vegetable tanned leather. ultimately, i'd like to get into harnesses with pocket/pouches, and more varieties of jewelry. all styles i create get named after the first person to buy the thing, though a few are named after what they seem to invoke. to date i've got: the brooke, the johanna, the jan, the duane, the autumn, the lindsey, the amy, the sarah, the leo, the leaf, the mayfly, the ustya and countless unnamable (but not ungraspable) one-offs. i invite folks to stop by my booth during the season, or visit me on instagram.com/wilder.leather, to learn more.

 WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE DOING:

i love and appreciate that i get to work in a medium that continually challenges and excites, and one in which i constantly/compulsively experiment with shapes, colors, lines, textures, hardware, forms, finishes, and functionality, all through the conduit of leather. i require stimulation and a sense of purpose/urgency to move through space and time. miraculously, what i'm doing with WILDER LEATHER does this for me; my work expresses a side, or many sides, perhaps, that i'm happy to share. i dig that WILDER LEATHER is one of my most valued, sanguine creative launch pads, melding my imaginative, instinctual, intuitive, and practical intelligences in novel ways. as Anne Carson says, and i'm fond of repeating: "make a small mark, nothing sublime." this sentiment fuels my passion to 'make.' as each amalgamation of 'small marks' takes shape to form a functional object, from hulking sides of cowhide, no less, i feel a sense of grateful satisfaction in being able to craft beautiful, practical, lasting objects.

 i must add that i sincerely appreciate being able to do what i do, and to offer what i can, through the vibrant, neighborly marketplace of Mower's Flea Market. not only is the Flea a brilliant/perfect/wonderful platform for my work, but it's a field (literally) ripe with cross-pollination. i buy beautiful beads, leather, and hardware from other vendors; i get fresh ideas from other vendors and passersby, directly and indirectly; and i really listen when someone asks "can you make (X), but with (Y)?" and then, if it's a custom or i just decide to go with it, i'm likely off in a new direction(s), or, at the very least, i get to create with a fresh slant. as much as anything, it is this rich engagement that propels WILDER LEATHER endlessly forward, endlessly rocking.

instagram.com/wilder.leather

wilderleather18@gmail.com

Remembering Annie Bianco Mower On Her Birthday

 

One of the many lessons taught to us by Annie Bianco Mower was the importance of birthday celebrations.   We imagine that she is celebrating her 105^th birthday today in a heavenly way with Aunt Jen, Aunt Angie, Aunt Marie and the dozens of close friends Annie made over her many years of earthly life.  Born in 1917 in Kingston, NY, Annie was raised in the family home on Greenkill Avenue by her Sicilian born maternal grandparents Biaggio and Barbara Commarata.  

Like many of the girls her age, after graduating from Kingston High School, Annie went to work at Hercules Powder Plant in Port Ewen, N.Y.  

“Anna Bianco, a real Kingston city girl, met a handsome Woodstocker, Al Mower, at the Spring Lake roller rink located just west of the city of Kingston on Lucas Avenue. In keeping with the social practice of the times, Al Mower converted from Dutch Reformed to Catholicism. The couple was then married on May 18, 1943 at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Kingston. A lovely wedding breakfast followed the service at the Rathskeller Restaurant on Fair Street.”  American Tapestry the Mowers of Maple Lane pg 88

Maple Lane What a Great Place  to Raise a Family

                “Raising her family in her mother- in – laws house must have been awkward for Anne at first.  Eventually, Esther and Anne began to share the household chores. There was a big, deep white enamel sink in the kitchen, which made it easy to hook up the copper topped automatic wringer washing machine. They would drag the washing machine from the hallway where it was stored and push it into the kitchen. The only drawback, it had to be emptied by hand with a pail. It seems as though every clear day was wash day on Maple Lane. As the weather allowed, the clothes were then taken outside to hang on the line. The girls, when they were young, would tease their mom by clipping clothes pins to her skirt while she was hanging clothes on chilly winter days. They would later have to help collect the board stiff clothes, usually diapers, and bring them into the house to be placed over furniture to thaw out.”

American Tapestry the Mowers of Maple Lane, pg 92

American Tapestry the Mowers of Maple Lane available from the author at Mowers Saturday Sunday Fleamarket or email woodstockfleamarket@hvc.rr.com 

Musings while baking pie on a beautiful July day

We just finished up a stretch of unusually hot July weather. We shopped at Adams last night and John caught a glimpse of Rhubarb and his request to me was, Strawberry Rhubarb pie? While mixing the dough this morning I wondered what our mothers and grandmothers did about baking during the hot summer days in the 20th century. The only solution I could muster was that they baked very early in the morning, before the heat of the day set in.           

                                                                                                                                                                   My mom, Winnie Davis Fallon, would make an apple pie now and then. Truthfully, she was more of a chocolate cake and chocolate chip cookie kind of baker. I honed my pie making skills at the elbow of my mother-in-law, Annie Bianco Mower. As far as I am concerned, Annie made an apple pie worthy of all the ribbons that could ever be awarded at a state fair. Of course, if you knew her, she was modest as hell and would always try to “improve” her dough recipe or the apple pie, based on what one of her girlfriends did with their dough. Don’t change a thing, was our usual retort when Annie would ponder if perhaps Gertrude Avery had a better way of making apple pie. Annie’s pie baking mentor was her husband’s aunt Hazel Mower Riseley. They were neighbors on Maple Lane back when Annie had her hands full raising a family and keeping up with her husband Al’s different endeavors. 

  Excerpted from American Tapestry, the Mowers of Maple Lane by Janine Fallon Mower pg 94 “On holiday weekends, Uncle Maurice would take his great nephew John on the milk runs with him. Maurice would have to double up on his route on these occasions, so an extra pair of hands and young legs would make a difference as Maurice was in his early 60’s John would stay over in Maurice and Hazel’s little house, once occupied by Noah and Catherine Mower, his great- great grandparents. Sleepy eyed John would come down the stair way in the very early in the morning to a hearty breakfast prepared by Aunt Hazel. “The grandparents we never had” She would kid her great nephew as he always ate about 36 “dollars’ worth” of her tasty silver dollar size pancakes. Once their appetites had been satisfied, the two set out on the home milk delivery route. Maurice’s other helper would be his grandson, Mark Riseley. On many occasions, Mark would ride along with his grandfather as Maurice traveled his route that included homes way out on Route 28. One of Hazel’s other specialties was Rhubarb pie. When in season, you were guaranteed a slice of pie would be waiting for a hungry visitor.

 Aunt Hazel became a mentor for city girl Anne Mower. As the vegetables in the garden began to ripen, the two women would work side by side readying the harvest. Most of the work was done while sitting on a long board placed atop two slabs of bluestone that were resting just outside Hazel’s back door. Any given bright sunny day one might find them sharing time together “doing beans” just freshly picked from the garden. The Mower children were either playing in the yard nearby or attending school. The women would put the beans in a ceramic bowl filled with cold water. Then, the beans would be swished around in the water, gather up by the handful and the excess water would be shaken off. The beans would be left to air dry on a cotton cloth. Once the beans were cleaned, they would be prepared for canning. They both were known to also put-up quarts and quarts of tomatoes and peaches.”

 Available through the author on weekends at Mower’s Saturday flea market 845-679-6744 or at the Historical Society Book shop at 20 Comeau Drive on weekends 1-5 . historicalsocietyofwoodstock.org

Farmer Steve

Each weekend for 36 years, Farmer Steve has made the trip from Columbia County with his van jammed packed full of seasonally fresh fruits and veggies to sell at his farm stand at Mower’s Saturday Sunday flea market. Steve also carries a wide variety of herbs, flowers and vegetable plants in season. An avid N.Y. Met fan, Farmer Steve is in constant motion. He usually has a story or two to share about his escapades protecting his crops from summer thunderstorms or the logistics of watering his crops during a drought. Sixteen years ago, Steve was part of a crew of flea vendors who pitched the idea of a two-day market to John and Janine. There had been a stretch of rainy weather and as the flea was Saturdays only, the flea kept getting cancelled. It was decided to commit to the two days, thus creating a built-in rain day. You will find him every weekend under the beautifully grand old Maple tree, on Maple Lane in Woodstock. The photo and article are from a 1997 Daily Freeman newspaper article.