What Gets Made Here
In Suffolk County, micro-businesses make up 63% of the local economy. Most of them have no storefront, no dedicated venue, no consistent way to meet the public. On the East End, that gap is sharpest in winter, when the farm stands close, the galleries go quiet, and the towns that hum all summer pull inward. The people who make things here keep making them. They just lose most of their ways to connect.
That's the problem the Makers Market was built around.
We started hosting it in 2017, in partnership with the North Fork Art Collective, a local organization that works to keep the creative community of the East End visible and connected. Each market brings 18 to 22 local artisans, small producers, and makers to Sound View. It is open to anyone. We source from and work directly with many of these businesses throughout the year, so the market is less a standalone event and more an extension of relationships that are already there.
The people who show up are a pretty honest cross-section of what this place actually runs on. Joseph Francis of Mojo Studio Art is a working chef whose creative life extends well beyond the kitchen: he makes custom chef knives and hand-crafted wooden knife sayas, functional art rooted in culinary culture, the kind of work that takes real skill and a distinct point of view. Courtney Hall of Red Earth is a herbalist who makes skin care and medicinal products sourced from organic farms right here on the North Fork. She sees clients, knows every ingredient, and had no storefront, no obvious place to meet the community she was already part of. KK Farm and Treiber Farms bring the things they've been making all winter - pickled, preserved - the work that happens quietly when there's no fresh produce to sell.
A few years ago we added a second market in March, timed to our wellness programming: herbalists, skin care makers, practitioners. The change of season brings a different kind of maker and a different kind of visitor.
After eight markets, what we keep coming back to is this: the North Fork makes things all year. It grows things, cures things, crafts things, tends things. What it doesn't always have, especially in winter, is a place to bring all of that together. Somewhere makers can find their community, where visitors and locals alike can meet the people behind what they're buying, and where choosing local is something you can actually do, in person, on a Saturday in December. That's what we're here to incubate.