NKU students sell their art at ‘Yart sale’
Vendors for the Yart sale present their pieces in the library’s lower parking lot.
NKU students and other local artists were able to sell their art to the public on Sept. 13 during the Campbell County Public Library’s first Yart sale, a yard sale-style event designed to introduce library patrons to local artists.
“I was appointed to contact local artists in the area universities to see if anyone would be interested in vending,” said Jill Liebisch, adult and teen services programmer for the Newport branch of the Campbell County Public Library. “We were very lucky in that we had a lot of interest from vendors. For our first time that’s great.”
Vendors were asked to keep their art affordable; pieces for sale could not be priced higher than $30.
“We were very firm on $30 or less, because we want all of the art to be affordable,” said Liebisch. “But we also understood that selling original works for less than $30 might be a hard thing to persuade someone to do, and we would never expect someone to do that. That’s why we were also encouraging prints and duplicates.”
Vendors for the Yart sale paid a $5 registration for the event, and the proceeds went to Friends of the Campbell County Public Library, a nonprofit organization that assists with the improvement of the libraries services, materials, and facilities.
“There is a $5 registration fee, though the artists keep all of their profits, 100 percent,” said Liebisch.
One of the vendors selling their art was Kara Henry, a freshman graphic design major at NKU. Henry said she heard about the program through an art advising email, and is using the opportunity to sell her older art, including pieces that were part of her AP art portfolio from high school.
“I’ve sold, I think three things, so that’s cool. I didn’t really have any high expectations,” said Henry.
This event is the first time that Henry has ever sold any of her artwork.
“For some of these NKU students, they said that this is the very first time that they’ve ever gotten to sell and display their art,” said Liebisch.
Zach Ghaderi, an NKU graduate with a BA in graphic design, was also a vendor the Yart sale.
“It’s cool getting to meet people, talking about art,” Ghaderi said about the event.
Ghaderi’s art has a darker style with multicolored illustrations of overweight, imperfect, and emotionally distressed persons. “It’s boring if you just paint attractive people in attractive positions,” he said.
Several staff members from the library sold their art as well, such as Kelly Schierer, a circulation clerk for the library and NKU graduate who sells art through her freelance art organization CreativeKinder Press, which specializes in dragon artwork.
For the Yart sale Schierer priced an original piece from her ornate dragon drawings collection at $15.
“These aren’t prints, they’re real,” said Schierer, pointing out the bleeding colors from the Copic pens on the back of the piece, which prove its authenticity.
According to Cory Clark, Schierer’s fiancè and NKU senior, CreativeKender Press also attends science fiction and anime festivals to sell pieces to genre fans.
“I know we made over $1,000 at Fandomfest,” said Clark.
Besides giving local artists an opportunity to sell their art, Liebisch also hopes the Yart sale is beneficial to the library.
“This was also an attempt to reach out to the community and bring people to the library,” said Liebisch, who is hoping the library’s book sale will benefit from the added traffic of the Yart sale.
If the Yart sale proves successful, Liebisch believes the event will come back next year.
“We hope so,” said Liebisch. “If all goes to plan, we should.”
