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Fireweed
Where artisans sell their wares...

Dawn Ostrem
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Aug 16/00) - Although the Fireweed Studio gives local artists a chance to sell their wares, they don't claim to be salespeople.

The little cabin located near City Hall doesn't appear large enough to hold more than a handful of people, but it does. And along the walls, there are racks full of arts and crafts, mostly pottery, for sale.

The Yellowknife Guild of Arts and Crafts members supply the merchandise and the salespeople to run the shop in a building that was used as a blacksmith shop at Brock mine in the 1930s and powder magazine for Giant mine after that.

The studio is open for just two months each year and will close Labour Day weekend.

"We have a last-day sale and prices are slashed," local artist Ann Peters said laughing, in her best sales pitch.

"I'm not a salesperson," added Autumn Downey, who was working in the gallery Saturday.

She explained that a man came in from out of town recently and was talking about his wife and how she belonged to the guild in 1948 when they lived in Yellowknife.

"I was disappointed he didn't buy a cookbook because I thought his wife would have enjoyed it," she said. "I sort of tried but..."

The studio has been operating since 1993 and attracts several tourists since it gets a plug from the visitor's centre. But Yellowknifers, too, peruse the shelves stacked with tea pots, dishes and jars. Blue and green dominate.

"It's an interesting market except most of the time we're just thinking, 'Why don't people buy these little green cups,' I think they're beautiful," Peters laughed.

"People seem to like blue or green. There's blue people and green people, mostly blue."

Downey added that, "red is difficult to do (with pottery) so red people are kind of left out."

The guest book holds scribbled signatures from as far away as London, England and California.

And regardless of artists' sales skills, or lack thereof, when it comes to selling their art the studio is a hit.

Carolyn Houlder, visiting from Toronto, has been in town 10 days and visited it three times.

"I think it's fabulous," she said. "It's absolutely sensational."