Critics have been lamenting the conformity of contemporary book coves for more than a decade, railing against the same abstract blobs and bland stock imagery gracing many titles. The designs are often chosen for their marketability and ease of mass production, two unavoidable, economic factors in today’s literary landscape.

An exhibition at The Grolier Club in New York, though, veers in the opposite direction, countering the monotonous, machine-printed images we’re all too familiar with for bespoke designs. Titled Judging a Book by its Cover: Bookbindings from the Collections of The Grolier Club, 1470s-2020, the show scans the club’s vast archives to highlight a wide array of elegant, handcrafted designs from the last seven centuries.

Founded in 1884, the organization is the oldest and largest society dedicated to bibliophiles and graphic artists in the U.S. Along with its enormous library of 100,000 titles, the club maintains a network of hundreds of antiquarian collectors, dealers, librarians, printers, binders, designers, and more dedicated to preserving and sharing the art of books and paper.

Josephus. ‘Jewish Antiquities and the Jewish War’ (Latin). Augsburg: Johann Schüssler, 1470. Bound with Eusebius. ‘Ecclesiastical History’ (Latin manuscript). Füssen, 1462.

As the exhibition’s curator H. George Fletcher writes in a statement, The Grolier Club was established under some of the same anxieties about printing practices that many of us are feeling today:

Current productions employed acidic paper with trade bindings reflecting only too well the heavy-handed styles of the era. The treatment of rare books and manuscripts was essentially worse—style overcoming substance, bookblocks encased in straightjackets that discouraged or deterred use of the contents, often unsympathetic décor.

Judging a Book by its Cover highlights some of the more unique editions within the collection. Included is the pigskin- and brass-bound Jewish Antiquities and the Jewish War created for a Benedictine monastery in Bavaria around 1473, making it the oldest in the club’s library. Several other religious texts are on view, like the miniature book of psalms shown above, made by women at the Royal Exchange in London with a variety of silk and gold threads.

Secular works include a delicate cloth volume from May Morris, the daughter of the famed textile designer William Morris. Cloaked in elegant floral embroideries, the green silk book resembles her father’s ornate naturalistic motifs.

If you’re in New York, you can see the hand-crafted designs up close through April 13. Otherwise, check out the online exhibition for a deeper dive into the collection. (via Hyperallergic)

Ernest Lefébure. ‘Embroidery and Lace: Their Manufacture and History from the Remotest Antiquity to the Present Day.’ London: Grevel, 1888.

Bernardino Ridolfi. ‘In funere Caroli III Hispaniarum Regis Catholici oratio habita in sacello pontificio.’ Parma: Giambattista Bodoni, 1789.

Joseph Glanvill. ‘Seasonable Reflections and Discourses in Order to the Conviction, & Cure of the Scoffing, & Infidelity of a Degenerate Age.’ London: Henry Mortlock, 1676.

Book of Hours, Use of Paris (Latin). Paris: Michaël Dauplet, 1673

‘Kalendario Manual y Guia de Forasteros en Madrid para el Año de MDCCLXXXII. Bound with Estado Militar de España Año de 1782.’ Madrid: Imprenta Real de la Gazeta, 1782.

Lynd Ward. ‘Gods’ Man: A Novel in Woodcuts. New York: Cape & Smith, 1929. Lynd Ward. Madman’s Drum: A Novel in Woodcuts.’ New York: Cape & Smith, 1930.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Spanning Seven Centuries, ‘Judging a Book by its Cover’ Celebrates an Enduring Art appeared first on Colossal.

As we step into a new year and quarter, marketing operations teams face the perennial challenge of setting new annual goals that are both ambitious and achievable. Goal setting for marketing operations teams isn’t just about hitting numbers but crafting a roadmap for growth and innovation. When setting goals, Marketing Operations teams should consider crafting different sets of goals for two audiences: your public goals, which will be shared with your marketing and sales partners, and your team’s internal goals, which will only be shared within your MOPs team.

Approach your MOps with a “product management” mindset

When creating your goals, it’s important first to understand if your Marketing Operations (MOPs) teams have adopted a “Product Management” mindset. This product-first approach involves thinking of your marketing operations team and platforms as a product, continuously evolving to meet the needs of your organization and customers. By doing so, you can create a more agile, responsive, and effective MOPs function. One way to adopt this type of mindset is by building a roadmap of planned work for your MOPs team, broken down into monthly sprints. Jessica Kao recently highlighted the success she’s had with this approach on the RevOps podcast. 

Designing Monthly Sprints for Continuous Improvement:

• Monthly Sprints. Just like a software product, your MOPs should be developed in monthly sprints. Each sprint should focus on delivering specific features and capabilities that align with your overarching goals.
• Capability Building. Each sprint should not only aim to achieve immediate goals but also build capabilities that lay the foundation for future initiatives. This approach ensures sustained growth and adaptation of your MOPs.
• “Quick Wins” = Rapid Prototyping and Feedback Loop. Implement a rapid prototyping approach. Roll out beta versions of new features or improvements, gather feedback, and iterate. This process enables you to refine your operations continuously and adapt quickly to new insights or changes in the market.

Once your team has adopted the approach of building a roadmap around monthly sprints, you can start to align both of your sets of goals around that roadmap.

Why two sets of goals?

There are many different types of goal-setting frameworks and methodologies, but at a fundamental level, goal-setting usually falls into two approaches: top-down or bottom-up. The top-down approach is often led by upper management and passed down through the hierarchy of the organization, with each subsequent level of management aiming to align their goals with the organization’s overarching objectives and vision. Think of your public goals as your “top-down” goals.

On the other end of the spectrum, “bottom-up” goal setting is led by employees at lower levels of the organizational hierarchy. These goals are often more practical and immediately relevant to the “on-the-ground” challenges of daily operations. Think of your internal team goals as your “bottom-up” goals.

Public “top-down” goal setting

When planning your public goals, talk to your internal stakeholders about what their objectives are for the year, map those objectives to what capabilities your MOps team requires to deliver against those objectives, and then break each capability down into what “quick wins” you can deliver for that stakeholder. For example:

• Stakeholder objective: Increase sales in the automotive sector by 5%.
• Marketing operations capabilities: Sales enablement, personalized content, lead management.
• Long-term vision: Inbound and outbound multi-channel campaign targeting the automotive industry.

In the example above, the long-term vision might be to launch a holistic multi-channel campaign targeting the automotive industry. But that might mean developing new lead management and personalization capabilities within your MAP platform that you know could take six months or more to build out. But if you go back to your stakeholders and tell them that you need six months to build those capabilities out, they are going to be frustrated and view the MOPs team as a roadblock to achieving their goals rather than an asset that can help them win. 

So, how can you break those capabilities down into smaller “quick wins” to satisfy your internal partners that you’re supporting their objectives? Identifying quick wins is critical, and you can often measure their success in a binary way -did they launch or did they not? That’s the type of product-focused, “rapid prototyping” mindset that can help your team plan each monthly sprint. Deliver a quick win each month while continuing to work on the long-term capabilities in the background. 

Month 1. Create an email template that the sales team can send on their own to their automotive prospects.

Month 2. Build upon that single email template to launch a three-email “nurture sequence” that sales can enroll their automotive prospects into.

Month 3. Launch a webinar targeting the automotive industry.

Month 4. Launch paid search and landing page.

Month 5. Etc., etc.

Communicating these monthly accomplishments to your internal stakeholders is vitally important to keep them engaged and supportive of your team. How you choose to communicate it might vary — it could be in a monthly email or one-pager, but the most important aspect is to show that your team is delivering value quickly and consistently.

That consistency is going to build confidence in your team from your stakeholders and ultimately buy you more time to not only improve upon the substance of these “quick wins” to deliver more full-fledged capabilities within your platforms but, perhaps even more importantly, it will provide the goodwill necessary to give your team the space to continue to advance your own internal goals. 

Dig deeper: Megan Michuda: Spotlight on the expert

Internal “bottom-up” goal setting

When thinking about the goals that you set for your internal marketing operations team, you want to think about what success really means for your team. Success in these terms might not be the traditional metrics that initially come to mind for a marketing operations team, like “increase marketing qualified leads.” Instead, true success may be things that are harder to quantify but are more impactful to your team’s day-to-day work.

Success in these terms might be things like:

What success looks like	How do we know we’ve achieved this?
Marketing Operations is viewed as a strategic partner	MOPs are included in upfront planning meetings consistentlyThe CMO regularly includes bullet points about the MOPs teams’ progress in their own goals and status updates
Decreasing the number of urgent requests that come to the team	Track your team’s work by tickets, hours, story points (etc.)… what percent of work is urgent? What percent are “ad hoc” requests vs planned work on your roadmap?
MOPs team members have time for professional development	Create a list of skills or topics the team wants to develop, and keep track of what activities have been done to improve knowledge in those areas (webinars or conferences attended, free product trials to test, etc.)
We build the necessary documentation around systems and processes that always get put to the backburner	List out the documentation that needs to be created, and regularly schedule updates/reviews to keep it up to date

These types of goals take time to show progress against, and therefore, reviewing progress against them every quarter will make more sense than a monthly cadence. At the beginning of the year, schedule these quarterly reviews with your marketing operations team and hold the team accountable for reviewing the goals that you set and the progress that you’ve made against them.

Each quarter, you can assess if these are still the right goals and the right priority for your team and also develop tactics and plans for how you can make more progress against them. 

As we embrace a new year, the importance of taking a strategic, structured approach to goal setting is critical to enhancing the reputation of MOPs across your organization as well as fostering a sense of accomplishment and motivation within your team. This type of goal-setting strategy ensures that MOPs teams are not just operational backbones but also key contributors to strategic initiatives and growth. 

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About the author

Contributor

Megan Michuda is currently the SVP, director of marketing operations and innovation at BOK Financial. Prior to joining BOK Financial, she served as global head of marketing technology at Janus Henderson Investors. Janus Henderson was a Stackie Award winner in 2018. Megan is currently responsible for BOK Financial’s marketing technology stack, marketing automation, digital analytics, and marketing operations. In 2020, Megan’s startup Stacktus was acquired by CabinetM, a leader in martech management. Megan is now both a user of CabinetM as well as an advisor. Megan received her bachelor’s degree from Brown University and her master’s of science in technology management from University of Denver.

In his metaphysical novel Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami offers a particularly heady description: “Beyond the edge of the world there’s a space where emptiness and substance neatly overlap, where past and future form a continuous, endless loop. And hovering about there are signs no one has ever read, chords no one has ever heard.”

This unknown realm is where Ian Mwesiga sets his paintings. For his first institutional exhibition in the United States titled Beyond the Edge of the World, the Ugandan artist translates Murakami’s quiet uncanniness onto the canvas, envisioning subtly strange scenarios in which figures partake in curious acts. Mwesiga’s settings seem to hover on the thresholds between interior and exterior, ephemeral and non-, as autumn leaves, reflective pools of water, and cracked branches jagged at a break interrupt nature’s rhythms.

In “Tales of the Moonlight Boy,” a man sits on a bubblegum pink sheet draped over a balustrade with a body of water and forest bathed in blue visible the opening behind him. “Man with apple standing in a pool” is similarly surreal as the subject stands thigh-deep in water, a window on the building in front of him peering through to an unknown landscape. A Pepsi advertisement hangs overhead, evoking, like Murakami, consumerist culture and making the ubiquitous appear unusual. Mwesiga shares about his influences and visual language:

First, I should say that the process of making each painting is like an evolving thread of thoughts or ideas from a repository of memory or daily experiences. It is safe to say that I see paintings in everything and everywhere, and this forms an important part of my repository from which choices of how, where, what, and when are made.

Beyond the Edge of the World is on view at The FLAG Art Foundation through May 4. Find more of Mwesiga’s works on his site and Instagram.

“Man with apple standing in a pool” (2023), oil on linen, 65 x 59 inches

“Man striding on a staircase” (2023), oil on canvas, 70 7/8 x 59 inches

“Lying on a Bed of Mist, 2021), oil on canvas, 59 1/8 x 51 1/8 inches

“Basketball Player IV” (2022), oil on canvas, 76 3/4 x 43 1/4 inches

“Lady in a blue dress at a bus stop” (2023), oil on canvas, 65 x 59 inches

“Tales of the moonlight girl” (2023), oil on canvas, 59 x 70 7/8 inches

“Man and his shadow” (2023), oil on canvas, 70 7/8 x 59 inches

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Ian Mwesiga’s Imagined Figures Hover on the Threshold of an Uncanny World appeared first on Colossal.

If you’ve traveled via the Long Island Rail Road service in Manhattan and traversed the MTA’s brand new Grand Central Madison station, you may have noticed a slice of nature indoors in a monumental, wall-spanning mosaic of a woodland deer. Acclaimed artist Kiki Smith completed the piece in 2022, and it’s one of the most recent works in which she honors the natural world and humanity’s role within it.

Smith began examining themes relating to the body in the 1980s, spurred by the death of her father, who was also an artist, and the loss of her sister to AIDS. Her early drawings and sculptures literally turned the figure inside out, often depicting organs, body parts, and bodily fluids, which related closely to the root concern in the AIDS epidemic as well as the visceral experience of the menstrual cycle.

In the 1990s, Smith began to portray the human figure as a whole, and her practice evolved into an interdisciplinary exploration of a variety of mediums, from photography to printmaking to textiles. Embodiment remained a continuous focus, and over time, the artist increasingly considered our connection to nature and the cosmos, often portraying women with symbolically powerful and enigmatic animal counterparts.

In works like “Dreaming with Birds” or “Lounging with Wolf,” her subjects appear both physically and metaphysically connected. In other pieces like “Evening Star” or “Wolf with Birds IV,” creatures commune with one another or soar through dreamy landscapes.

Smith’s works subtly imply a tension between the knowable and unknowable and the potency of consciousness. Her subjects often tap into historic narratives, classical mythology, and folk tales, vacillating between stark, abject aspects of human physicality and a sense of comfort and oneness with one’s surroundings. Celestial bodies and astronomical phenomena often appear in the form of comets or a swirling night sky dotted with geometric stars, reflecting a timeless fascination with the infinity of the universe and our timeless drive to understand it.

See more of Smith’s work at Pace Gallery.

“Dark Water” (2023), bronze, 72 × 65 × 28 inches

“Dreaming with Birds” (2004), bronze, 47 3/4 x 73 1/2 x 2 inches. Cast 1 of 3, edition of 3 + 1 AP

“not yet titled (comet)” (2019) bronze, 93 × 40 × 2 3/4 inches. Edition 1 of 3, edition of 3 + 1 AP

“Lounging with Wolf” (2005), ink and collage on Nepalese paper, 71 x 84 inches

“Wolf with Birds IV” (2010), bronze, 43 1/4 x 54 x 4 inches

Detail of “Rise” (2018), bronze, 11 3/4 × 23 × 8 inches overall. Edition 1 of 13, edition of 13

“Among the Flowers” (2023), bronze with gold and Japanese silver leaf, dimensions variable, 89 elements

Detail of “Respite” (2017), bronze,17 × 14 × 11 inches. Edition 1 of 3, edition of 3 + 1 AP

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Humans and Animals Commune with Nature and the Cosmos in the Multidisciplinary Work of Kiki Smith appeared first on Colossal.

Eriko Kobayashi’s incredibly lifelike sculptures of fried eggs, bacon, and gummy bears are made from the last thing you’d want to take a bite out of. Formed entirely of glass, the Seattle-based artist’s hyperrealistic works explore our relationship with routine meal times, comfort foods, and the nostalgia of brands like Pop Tarts.

“I believe that we make decisions about our clothing, food, and everyday requirements based on a feeling of intimacy and sympathy with the products,” Kobayashi tells Colossal. Tapping into universally recognizable items, like the ubiquitous breakfast menu of eggs and bacon, the artist draws on her own nostalgia, portraying fare she often has close at hand. She views glass as a medium that can both encapsulate and accumulate experience.

Kobayashi uses a technique called hot casting, in which individual pieces are fused together at high temperatures in a handmade mold. “I always seek new invigoration and try to make pieces that deepen thought, give off a positive feeling, and arouse curiosity,” she says. “The discipline required to convincingly create an object in glass demands that I spend a long, concentrated period of time making that object.”

Working with glass requires a lot of patience in the pursuit of precision. For example, in the process of making solid, cubic gummy bear pieces, Kobayashi underwent much trial and error. “Incorrect fusing temperatures resulted in gummy bears melting too much, mistakes in the mold shape caused temperature variations, and miscalculating the annealing time led to cracks in the glass,” she says. “Through experimentation, I ended up creating my own molds and calculating the temperature to achieve the desired form.”

Kobayashi’s work will be included in the forthcoming 2024 edition of Ripleys Believe It Or Not! and is currently part of Potluck at Hashimoto Contemporary in Los Angeles. And if you’re in Seattle, you can see her work in the Pratt Fine Arts Center window showcase in a presentation titled Chewy Thoughts, opening this month and continuing through June. Find more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Eriko Kobayashi Casts Extraordinarily Lifelike Foods From Glass in Her Hyperrealistic Sculptures appeared first on Colossal.

Rising from the plush motifs of woven rugs, the wildlife that emerge from Debbie Lawson’s Kent studio are camouflaged by domesticity. The artist (previously) is known for her sculptures cloaked in ornate carpets, the latest of which are on view now at Sargents Daughters for her solo exhibition Hidden Territories.

Elaborate Persian patterns obscure life-sized stags, lions, and bears, that, while distinct in form, lose their naturalistic qualities under the posh floor coverings. Rather than simply cloak each animal in fabric, Lawson leaves the common rectangular rug shape around each creature, further obscuring the boundary between inanimate, human-made decoration and natural life.

Hidden Territories continues in New York City through March 9. Peek into Lawson’s studio and view more of her work on her website and Instagram.

“White Lion” (2023), carpet and mixed media, 47 x 34 x 19 inches

“Bear Cartouche” (2023), carpet and mixed-media, 57 1/8 x 38 1/4 x 19 3/4 inches

“Red Lion” (2023), carpet and mixed media, 37 x 55 x 12 inches

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Debbie Lawson Tames the Wild by Cloaking Life-Sized Animals in Ornate Rugs appeared first on Colossal.

With Valentine’s Day peeking around the corner, vendors at the Tahlequah Art and Craft Market showed their love for shoppers at the Cherokee County Community Building on Feb. 10.

Dozens of vendors displayed their one-of-a-kind creations. There were sweets and treats, herbal remedies, gift baskets, jewelry, honey, and music supplied by Eddie Glenn.

One of the vendors was Wise Cat Apothecary, which specializes in herbal lotions, salves, teas, extracts, and bath salts. Tabatha Hibbs, owner, with the help of her husband, Mark Paulissen, began the business a little over two years ago.

“I started in herbalism personally as a way to manage my fibromyalgia,” Hibbs said. “I do not respond well to many of the pharmaceuticals prescribed for fibro. I was looking for ways to manage my pain and energy levels.”

The idea of selling her items came from a friend.

“I had a friend diagnosed with breast cancer,” Hibbs said. “I created a restorative tea for her. It really helped and she said, ‘You should sell that.’ So, I started selling it. And then, Mark said that I should do this full time.”

Many of her remedies came from customer’s requests.

“A friend’s husband has arthritis,” Hibbs said. “I created a special ginger turmeric tea. It’s a good blend that helps with inflammation. What they were buying at the store either doesn’t work or tastes bad from all the additives and stuff in it.”

Hibbs explained how she came up with the name for her business.

“I’m a cat lover. I was in the kitchen one day just piddling around and my cat, Cattywampus, was sitting on the barstool watching me. And, I thought, you know… I need a name. And my cat was looking at me like, ‘Duh.’ And I said, ‘You’re such a wise cat.’ Cattywampus is the CEO. That stands for cat executive officer,” Hibbs said.

The difference between Hibbs’ herbal remedies and those people can buy in big box stores is that her ingredients are organic and contain no synthetics.

“I make everything in-house, by myself,” Hibbs said. “You can find me all summer at the Farmers Market, and I also have a website.”

On the other side of the building was Sista K. Kreations. Scores of baskets holding candy, plush toys, and Valentine’s hearts were created by owner Gwen Keys, a long-time Tahlequah resident.

Keys designs and creates baskets for most holidays. She makes gift baskets suitable for significant others, spouses, parents, and children.

“I do Christmas, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Father’s Day, and birthdays,” Keys said. “I try to sell here in the community building, but if nothing’s going on, I go right down to the corner of Lee Street and sell them there. You can find me on my Facebook page.”

Near the front entrance was a booth specializing in local honey products. M3 Bee Farms is owned by Mike Landry, who began his bee business 12 years ago.

“I actually live in Owasso, but I have bees here,” Landry said. “I run about 100-150 hives a year.”

Honey has been said to help with allergies by slowly raising a person’s tolerance to the affecting pollen.

“Bees bring in the pollen from that area. So local honey will give you a small dose of that pollen,” Landry said.

Besides having a website with all his bee products for sale, Landry travels to many events in the Tahlequah area.

“I do Farmers Market, Go Ye Village, and Red Fern Festival,” Landry said.

Landry pulls honey three times each year. The taste of honey differs based on when it is pulled.

“Early in the year, you will get a light honey from fruit trees,” Landry said. “I pull again in July and you’ll get a lot of wildflowers in it. Then, I pull in the fall. It’s a much darker honey than you get in the spring.”

What started out as recreation for Landry turned into a passion.

“I always loved to hunt and fish,” Landry said. “As I got older, hunting didn’t appeal to me as much. But when I retired, I wanted to be outdoors. I started beekeeping and now it’s a full-time job. It keeps me out of the rocking chair.”

If there was one thing Landry wanted people to know it’s to “buy local honey.”

The “buying local” theme was echoed by most of the vendors. Buying local helps the local economy and strengthens the community as a whole. Buying from local artisans spreads the love all year long, not just on Valentine’s Day.

With Valentine’s Day peeking around the corner, vendors at the Tahlequah Art and Craft Market showed their love for shoppers at the Cherokee County Community Building on Feb. 10.

Dozens of vendors displayed their one-of-a-kind creations. There were sweets and treats, herbal remedies, gift baskets, jewelry, honey, and music supplied by Eddie Glenn.

One of the vendors was Wise Cat Apothecary, which specializes in herbal lotions, salves, teas, extracts, and bath salts. Owner Tabatha Hibbs, with the help of her husband, Mark Paulissen, launched the business a little over two years ago.

“I started in herbalism personally as a way to manage my fibromyalgia,” Hibbs said. “I do not respond well to many of the pharmaceuticals prescribed for fibro. I was looking for ways to manage my pain and energy levels.”

The idea of selling her items came from a friend.

“I had a friend diagnosed with breast cancer,” Hibbs said. “I created a restorative tea for her. It really helped and she said, ‘You should sell that.’ So, I started selling it. And then, Mark said I should do this full time.”

Many of her remedies came from customers’ requests.

“A friend’s husband has arthritis,” Hibbs said. “I created a special ginger turmeric tea. It’s a good blend that helps with inflammation. What they were buying at the store either doesn’t work or tastes bad from all the additives and stuff in it.”

Hibbs explained how she came up with the name for her business.

“I’m a cat lover. I was in the kitchen one day just piddling around, and my cat, Cattywampus, was sitting on the barstool watching me. And I thought, you know, I need a name. And my cat was looking at me like, ‘Duh.’ and I said, ‘You’re such a wise cat.’ Cattywampus is the CEO. That stands for cat executive officer,” Hibbs said.

The difference between Hibbs’ herbal remedies and those people can buy in big box stores is that her ingredients are organic and contain no synthetics.

“I make everything in-house, by myself,” Hibbs said. “You can find me all summer at the Farmers’ Market, and I also have a website.”

On the other side of the building was Sista K. Kreations. Scores of baskets holding candy, plush toys, and Valentine’s hearts were created by owner Gwen Keys, a long-time Tahlequah resident.

Keys designs and creates baskets for most holidays. She makes gift baskets suitable for significant others, spouses, parents, and children.

“I do Christmas, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Father’s Day, and birthdays,” Keys said. “I try to sell here in the community building, but if nothing’s going on, I go right down to the corner of Lee Street and sell them there. You can find me on my Facebook page.”

Near the front entrance was a booth specializing in local honey products. M3 Bee Farms is owned by Mike Landry, who began his bee business 12 years ago.

“I actually live in Owasso, but I have bees here,” Landry said. “I run about 100-150 hives a year.”

Honey has been said to help with allergies by slowly raising a person’s tolerance to the affecting pollen.

“Bees bring in the pollen from that area. So local honey will give you a small dose of that pollen,” Landry said.

Besides having a website with all his bee products for sale, Landry travels to many events in the Tahlequah area.

“I do Farmers’ Market, Go Ye Village, and Red Fern Festival,” Landry said.

Landry pulls honey three times each year. The taste of honey differs, based on when it is pulled.

“Early in the year, you will get a light honey from fruit trees,” Landry said. “I pull again in July and you’ll get a lot of wildflowers in it. Then, I pull in the fall. It’s a much darker honey than you get in the spring.”

What started out as recreation for Landry turned into a passion.

“I always loved to hunt and fish,” Landry said. “As I got older, hunting didn’t appeal to me as much. But when I retired, I wanted to be outdoors. I started beekeeping and now it’s a full-time job. It keeps me out of the rocking chair.”

If there was one thing Landry wanted people to know, it’s to “buy local honey.”

The “buying local” theme was echoed by most of the vendors. Buying local helps the local economy and strengthens the community as a whole. Buying from local artisans spreads the love all year long, not just on Valentine’s Day.