At Gainesville’s GLAM Craft Show, Novice And Experienced Artists Sell Wares

More than 80 vendors and hundreds of customers filled the historic GRU Operations Warehouse in Gainesville Sunday for the GLAM Craft Show, a do-it-yourself fair featuring knick-knacks, art pieces and food-truck dining.

Though the event, now in its eighth year, predominately featured vendors who had been there before, a handful of young faces found a new platform at this year’s show.

Seventeen-year-old Carina Dybevick brought her craft skills to the show for the first time this year, but her mother, Roxanne, has attended the event previously to sell her own paintings. 

“My mom really encouraged me from a very young age,” Dybevick said. “She’s like my cheerleader, and we do a lot of art shows together.”

Central among the colorful trinkets for sale at Dybevick’s booth were a series of miniature sculptures she calls “ice cream monsters.”

“I wanted to make a really realistic ice-cream scoop, but I didn’t really know what to do with it after that,” she said. “So I messed with it to try to make something unique, and the ice cream monster was created.”

One of the busiest booths at the convention was Bea Sweet Bakery’s. High school senior Beatrice Dain, 17, opened the bakery, which she runs out of her home, when she was a freshman. She said baking has been a part of her life since before kindergarten.

“My grandma owned a bakery when she was younger,” Beatrice said. “I thought, ‘Why the heck not?’”

Beatrice said she drew inspiration for her sweets featured Sunday from a recent trip to Germany, and they proved to be a smash hit.

“I had these espresso fudge cookies that just sold out within, like, two hours,” she said.

Other high schoolers featured — albeit in a different way — came from Gainesville High School’s branch of DECA, an entrepreneurship, finance, marketing and hospitality education organization for students interested in those industries. 

Dawn Bekaert, a teacher at the school and its DECA advisor, said the group set up a table right outside the warehouse’s main entrance to fundraise for a trip to a scholastic competition.

“We’re doing the gift wrapping,” she said. “It’s donation-based only. The gift wrapping is free, and all donations are appreciated.”

Editors note: This story has been updated to correct a caption that misidentified Shane Bracewell of Crazy Bird Threads as Karan Newman.