First-year Tagora Mortensen has become a familiar face to some on campus for selling crochet crafts to peers and passers-by.
Mortensen, a psychology major, described a unique family connection that gave him a front-row seat to the power of crafts such as crocheting.
“My Grammy has Alzheimer’s, and I remember I gave her yarn and a crochet hook, and she made something,” Mortensen said. “She made a line and she didn’t know how she did it, but it’s just muscle memory. Procedural memory versus episodic. It’s something I learned about in psychology.”
Describing his family as “artsy and crafty,” Mortensen said crocheting has been passed down from his Grammy to his mother and now to him.
“Art is something that’s very special to me in many different forms,” Mortensen said. “I’ve been making things since I was a little kid.” He listed musical theatre, sculpture, painting and embroidering as other artistic passions he has pursued.
Mortensen estimated he has had about 20 sales over the course of the semester, selling crocheted works across a variety of shapes, sizes and themes. He said he prices the works on a case-by-case basis depending on the size of the final product, time spent on labor and cost of supplies.
“I could charge more theoretically, but this is also a broke college campus, so I charge at a price that meets what I need and I charge the price that meets what other people are willing to pay,” Mortensen said.
Mortensen said when he began crocheting, he only made things for himself, building confidence before deciding to sell to other people. Eventually, he thought it could make a good business.
“It’s started to work, I’ve been getting money,” Mortensen said. “I think I have like 30-something bucks in my wallet right now. Pretty baller.”
Mortensen’s boyfriend, first-year Teddy Leary, expressed he was impressed by how many crafts Mortensen has sold.
“I’m really proud of him,” Leary said. “From what I’ve been seeing, it’s been going really well.”
Leary added a lot of job positions which would be ideal for first-year students have been occupied by this point in the year, so being able to sell art is a valuable money-making opportunity.
“I feel like it’s a good way that [Mortensen has] been able to use his artistic talents to make money,” Leary said.
Mortensen’s roommate, first-year Chelon Le, said they have a lot of respect for artists trying to build up business and support themselves.
Le, an artist who sells digital art commissions online, said there can be challenges to selling art in-person, especially on a college campus.
“Usually [customers] don’t have any money on them, since it’s mostly online, and usually the artists take cash, and sometimes they’re using transaction apps and they don’t have the same transactions apps as [the customers],” Le said.
Le added one of the ways artists can try to pull more reliable revenue is by venturing off-campus and reaching clients who have more spending money than the average college student. Even still, Mortensen highlighted the community aspect of art.
“I wish I could find more people who sold art on campus,” Mortensen said. “That would be pretty cool.”
Charlotte King can be contacted at
cking@kscequinox.com
