This Is My Front Door
Walking up to my table should feel like walking into somewhere. Not just passing by a display. Somewhere with personality and color and things that make you want to stop and look and pick things up and ask questions.
I don't have a brick and mortar store.
There's no shop you can walk into, no door to push open, no window to peek through on your way past. The online store is there, and I love it — but if you want to experience Anam Cara Clay Goods in person, markets are it. That's my store. That's my front door.
So when I show up, I show up fully.
Ask anyone who has helped me load the car. It is a lot.
The jewelry — all of it, every piece I can fit — because I genuinely believe that somewhere in that collection is exactly what you have been looking for. If I leave it at home, how are you ever going to find it? The displays, which I have collected and curated specifically because I did not want my table to look like anyone else's table. The props that make the whole thing feel like somewhere rather than something.
And the books. And the cameras.
The books on my market table belong to Josh and me.
We have been collecting them for years — old volumes with worn spines and faded covers, the kind that look beautiful stacked on a shelf or arranged on a table and feel like they have a history. I decorate with them at home, and when I started doing markets it felt completely natural to bring them with me. They are part of how I live. Why wouldn't they be part of how I show up?
The cameras are more my thing. I have been collecting vintage cameras for almost twenty years. There is something about them that is deeply nostalgic to me — they are reminders of family and home, of moments being captured and kept, of the people who held them before I did.
My first one belonged to my grandmother. A little Brownie camera. I keep that one at home, safely, not for markets. But the others travel with me — and they are one of the best conversation starters I have ever put on a table. People stop. They pick them up. They tell me about their own grandmother's camera, their father's Polaroid, the photos they found in a box in someone's attic. A vintage camera at a jewelry market is unexpected, and unexpected things start conversations.
Conversations are where the good stuff happens.
Every display piece on my table has a story.
That is not an accident — it is a choice I make deliberately every time I set up. I did not want a generic display. I did not want the same risers and stands you see at every market in every town. I wanted each piece to be unique, to have come from somewhere, to have a little history in it.
Some are antiques. Some are vintage finds. Some are things I spotted somewhere and thought — that belongs on my table. The whole setup is curated the same way I curate my home: with the things that bring me joy, arranged in a way that feels intentional and warm and a little bit full.
The display gets a lot of compliments. Other vendors stop by before the market opens just to take a look. Customers ask about the cameras, and the books, want to know the story behind a particular display piece. I have had entire conversations at my table that had nothing to do with jewelry and everything to do with a shared love of old things and the stories they carry.
That is not a distraction from the jewelry. That is the point. When someone feels comfortable enough to stop and linger and ask questions, they are already at home at my table. And that is exactly where I want them.
Yes, I am usually one of the last people still setting up. Yes, I bring a lot. Yes, it takes a minute.
But walking up to my table should feel like walking into somewhere. Not just passing by a display. Somewhere with personality and color and things that make you want to stop and look and pick things up and ask questions. Somewhere that feels like it was put together with care — because it was.
I know not everyone does it this way.
Minimal setups are beautiful and I respect them completely. That aesthetic is just not mine. I am a collector. I love things that bring me joy and carry meaning. And when I go to a market I want to put it all out there so people can really see what is possible.
The market table is an extension of my home. The books Josh and I have loved. The cameras that remind me of my grandmother and the people who came before me. The displays that each have their own small story to tell.
That is what Anam Cara actually is. Not just the jewelry — the whole world it lives in.
Come find us at the next market. The front door will be open.