The independent spirit of outdoor vendors

An advocate for locally made clothing, Rose Gerstner is the founder of Sympatico, an artisan-made clothing company. She regularly blogs about sustainable fashion and natural fiber clothes.

As a purveyor of locally made clothing, I admire the resilience that street sellers embody.

Dec 15, 2020 Update: When I originally put up this blog post in March 2017, I couldn’t anticipate how the local outdoor market scene would be profoundly changed by two devastating events three years later. My appreciation of street vendors has been heightened by both the coronavirus pandemic as well as the devastating Almeda Fire that swept through the Rogue Valley towns of Talent and Phoenix in August 2020. Among the fire’s many victims were friends and colleagues from the Lithia Artisans Market.

But more about that later. First, here’s my original post.

Selling my clothing in an outdoor booth has given me a keen appreciation for the entrepreneurial spirit, creativity and independence required to set up business on the street. In celebration of those impulses, I present a series of photos I took of outdoor vendors on a recent trip to SE Asia. 

In Oregon: me, in my outdoor booth

In Indonesia, on foot: the Candy Maker

In Indonesia, on foot: Traditional Javanese Rice Dessert Vendor

In Thailand, with wheels: Broom Seller

In Thailand, with wheels: Peanut Seller

In Thailand, with a roof but no walls: Textile Artist and Vendor

In Thailand, with a roof but no walls: Embroiderer

I feel solidarity with these business people and wish them good weather and big sales!

More 2020 update:  Reflecting on my photo essay now, there’s another quality I appreciate in street vendors: resilience. Through fair weather or foul, good economic times or bad, these folks persist.

As I mentioned at the outset, the quality of persistence is one that’s been brought home locally by the twin whammies of the pandemic and the Almeda Fire. Aside from those who had everything taken from them in minutes by the fire, 2020 had already been a trying year for artisans. The Lithia Artisans Market was limited to a much smaller group of artisans who could offer their wares in line with covid restrictions. Purveyors of locally made clothing such as Sympatico were basically out of the show business.

But that shrunken group of artisans persisted. They continued to show up every weekend even though for many, sales were a fraction of their usual business. Even braving the streets through the holiday season, this hardy band of craftspeople and artists has carried on.

Like their compatriots around the globe, I admire their willingness to show up, even when things are less than ideal.