Alongside Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Shop Small Saturday, many downtown businesses this weekend in Longmont celebrated Artist Sunday, a nationwide movement encouraging consumers to buy local art.

The Firehouse Art Center, 667 4th Ave., was one of a few businesses celebrating local artists through its Holiday Market where over 15 artists gathered at the gallery to sell one-of-a-kind pieces — ranging from ceramics, paintings and drawings to jewelry and found art works.

Marjorie Lipton, a volunteer at Firehouse, was displaying her mosaic pieces while creating new works live. Lipton’s art is abstract, as she forms a painting with a layer of cracked glass on top, which she said is like piecing together a puzzle. Each one of her glass mosaic pieces can take up to 15 hours to create, as she fiddles with pieces to fit together.

“I go outside and I see the colors, and I put those colors into the painting,” Lipton said.

She loves to take pictures of nature, as she draws inspiration from the outdoors. She said her work celebrates the same colors found in nature while also combining her love of mosaics.

Valerie Langlois said she loves to paint and draw on pottery. Many of Langlois’ pieces had winsome frogs, cows, bunnies or flowers etched on them. She is a researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder, and she said pottery has been her way to relax and escape her hectic full-time job.

Langlois said the Artist Sunday event gave her a chance to meet new artists and to be exposed to many different art mediums.

“This community has a lot to offer and show,” Langlois said. “Looking around, I’m just in awe and inspired by everyone’s art here.”

Participating artist Kylee Covili creates found-object art, where she repurposes a variety of materials for her pieces. Covili said she loves using “old stuff” to give her work a vintage and old-timey feeling. She said her brain loves to imagine different ways to use objects.

Covili said these events that celebrate local artists are one of the key ways artists can support themselves and display their work. She also noted the celebration of artists is crucial to fostering a creative community.

Participating artist Katheryn Babboni said her jewelry demonstrates every skill she has as she learned it. She said she loves to create unique pieces she has not seen before.

“Longmont would not be anything without its artists. And I feel that way about Boulder and surrounding areas too,” Babboni said.

Babboni is new to Longmont, and joining the Firehouse event allowed her to meet new people with common interests.

Participating artist Amanda Maldonado agreed with Babboni. They both said the world would be “blah” without artists creating and contributing to music, literature, clothing and — most importantly — community.

Longmont-based Maldonado, who operates Coy Ink Studio, started sketching animals as a way to simply draw things she loved. This grew into drawing places around Longmont as she fell in love with the city.

“Just getting out and seeing what people do is enough, even if they don’t buy anything. Seeing work and telling people they’re awesome is enough for most artists, so they feel seen and have a reason to create,”  Maldonado said.

She added people love local artists because the customer can talk to the artist and has maybe even gone to the place that inspired their work.