About Us
Learn about the birth of the market, our mission statement and upcoming market dates.
Read along to learn aaaaallll about us.
Our Story
Our Market was born out of a backyard, coupled with a few good friends and a dream ...
The Birth of the Market
In late 2021, founder Artemis began their journey as a new artist on the St. Pete art market scene and found themselves completely discouraged by the lack of diversity both in art and the artists themselves. With dead insects at the center of their medium, it was too often that the general population of market goers would turn up their noses at their work, so they knew something had to change. With the help of a fellow artist, they dreamt up the idea of New Moon Makers Market in a St. Pete backyard with only a handful of vendors, all friends. They thought that if the city wasn't accepting of their weird, different makes, they'd carve out a place for themselves and their friends who they felt fell into their category of strange queers. That night in that tiny backyard turned into a huge success, much to their shock, and the community demanded more. Thanks to a recent friendship made with Samir, the owner of our beloved Retrospect Furniture, our host location for nearly our market's entire life, the events moved and was able to accommodate *much* more space, both for vendors and patrons.
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The market eventually grew from 7 vendors, to over 30!
What makes us different
New Moon Makers Market is a curated market with the goal of providing opportunities of visibility to local makers, artists and alike, regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender expression, sexual orientation, disability, etc., while also prioritizing a showcase of colorful variety of handmade goods and wares. Our curation and intention is very important to us, and affords us our ability to create a non-competitive and fair marketplace for all kinds of small businesses. It has helped us prove ourselves as one of the most unique and different market experiences in the city.
We were the first to emphasize the Makers in our market name, and we're damn proud of it!
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In recent years, St. Pete has changed quickly. With big industry, developers and a whole lotta northerners moving into our homes, businesses and neighborhoods we remain fiercely loyal to our local weirdos and cool kids who make beautiful things with their hands. We believe it is crucial to support the true, original community of artists and makers and offer them an opportunity to support themselves doing what they love, despite what they may have to do to survive. As we enter our FOURTH year and eighth season as a market we are looking forward to growing with the changes we face but remaining a constant in our rich biosphere within our community. The queer community of St. Pete is why we are able to do what we do, so we owe everything to them and won't ever stop showing it. Thank you for allowing us to continue doing what we love by awarding us the opportunity to support our friends through art, love and community.
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Our Mission Statement
We strive to uplift every queer, weird and different maker in the St. Pete/Tampa Bay area while creating a queer, weird and different professional marketplace. Read on to see what makes us different. making us your favorite market in the city.
Embracing Change
Lots happened in our 3rd year and we have tried our best to embrace change and use it as a driving force for evolution
Tackling the unexpected
At the end of our 2024 Spring season, right before we held our final event of the season, we were faced with the greatest sadness when we learned that Retrospect was being forced to close and relocate. While we will always support and love Samir and whatever iterations of his shop become with time, we took it as a sort of push from the nest to find our next home. While the road has noooottttt been easy (or accessible, or well lit or even really navigable at all) we are proud of our dedication to our vision and ability to keep it movin. We faced tons of discouraging forces, namely landing a super dope venue that would have changed the game for us and our vendors that last minute didn't end up working, but we stood tall and persevered. We don't know what the future holds in our everchanging city, but we remain in constant gratefulness overflowing of the small businesses around St. Pete that have offered us their space to hold our events.
Fall of 2024 we had our October Return Market held at Daydream Makers Space, Sugar Cream Clay and Hawthorne Bottle Shoppe's combined space on Central Ave and it was dreamier than we could have ever imagined. We are extremely excited to close out our 2025 year of events at Allendale Church, who have done incredible work uplifting and supporting the queer + trans communities in our area. We will never be able to sing their praises enough.
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Thank you for supporting us in every form on evolution we find ourselves in <3 We love you!
Meet your Hosts
This year has also come with a change in our team dynamic as well! Read on to learn what our Moonie Mommieship looks like.
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Your Moonie Mommies
we are a small team with big dreams! we've expanded our team to four!
What is the Mommieship?
We call ourselves Moonie Mommies because our market is more than just an event -- our vendors have become family to us, making us their Mommies! We wear this badge with pride and are so honored to find ourselves in this position. This year we even welcomed our first Moonie Daddie! Welcome Lindsey to the family
Follow
@newmoonmakersmarket on instagram