As the autumnal equinox arrived on Saturday, hundreds of festivalgoers welcomed the new season at Boulder’s fall festival over the weekend.

Downtown Boulder Fall Fest, along Pearl Street Mall, hosted a variety of live music acts, a beer garden, children’s entertainment and over 100 artisanal booths curated by Firefly Handmade market.

Beth Pomerantz, owner and creative director of Firefly Handmade, said the market is beneficial to both customers and artisans as it connects local creatives together while giving them a chance to present their works of art to customers.

“We’re helping to build a community that loves arts and goods,” Pomerantz said.

She said there is appreciation on both sides of the exchange, as customers are exposed to new artisans and local artists, who, in turn, can meet the local community while also displaying their work.

Firefly was founded in 2013, and Pomerantz bought the market in 2013. She laughed while saying that before she bought the market, she applied to be a vendor and was denied. Pomerantz went to lunch with the Firefly founders, simply to learn more about the local art community and how she could improve her next application, when she realized she could buy the market.

Pomerantz has a background as an artist and in marketing, and she wanted the market to be a place where artists could display and sell their work while meeting fellow local artists.

Participating vendor Jessica Fraser, owner of Baby Jess Art, said her art is inspired by her childhood sketchbook pages. She said that she wants her art to capture the whimsy of childhood.

“I want my art to have the same feeling that art gave me as a kid,” Fraser said.

Fraser’s art is reminiscent of the books her mom would give her as a kid, with scenes of whimsical mice and fairies.

Vendor Jane E. Roberti started her namesake business in 2008 when she was working at a jewelry store in Chicago, realizing none of the pieces were made in-house. She said if she did not know how the piece was made, she would have a hard time selling it, so she started taking jewelry-making classes.

Roberti said that once she started making jewelry, she could not stop — so her business began. She said throughout the years her jewelry has changed and evolved, but she has always had talismans in her pieces.

Roberti said the talismans in her art hold power and let people connect to themselves, the earth, history and loved ones.

“There’s power in the talismans and it becomes more than just fashion,” Roberti said.

She loves literature, so she also creates necklaces with phrases engraved on them to “literally hold a message close to your heart.”

Friend Assembly, owned by Sarah Schreiber, is a ceramics business that had a booth at the weekend festival. Schreiber teaches a ceramics class in Denver, and she said ceramics is an approachable art that people can easily learn. She sells a variety of mugs and planter pots that all are adorned with their own little faces, giving the pieces a personality.

“The small ones (plant pots) have air plants in them, which I like to call hair plants,” Schreiber said.

She explained that the plant acts like the hair for the face on the pot, and each ceramic becomes a friend in the home.

The next Firefly Handmade market will again visit the Pearl Street Mall for its holiday market from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nov. 11-12. More information about Firefly is available at fireflyhandmade.com.

More information about Boulder Fall Fest is available at boulderdowntown.com/fall-fest.