Artist Thomas Lorio hasn’t missed a downtown Baton Rouge Arts Market in nearly 10 years.
“Well, there was one,” Lorio tells 225 with a laugh in a feature from the December issue. “I had surgery, but you bet I still tried to go.”
The Baton Rouge Arts Market, an open air market held on the first Saturday of each month (excluding January and April) in conjunction with the weekly Red Stick Farmer’s Market and the Main Street Market, is chock-full of talented, dedicated artists like Lorio. Those artists and hardworking members of the Arts Council come together every month to put on one of downtown’s most popular events.
Arts Council marketing director Malcolm Robinson worked his first market in October 2015, but says he’s long admired the market’s history and significance in the Capital City.
The market dates back to 1988, but the first couple of years saw slow foot traffic and only about 10 vendors each month, Robinson says. Now, the St. Joseph Cathedral parking lot is brimming with vendors and bustling shoppers every first Saturday of the month.
Lorio, a longtime jeweler and metal smith, says the Baton Rouge Arts Market is his biggest incentive to keep creating. Before he became a regular vendor, Lorio traveled around the South and sold his work at craft shows.
“That got old real quick,” Lorio says. “It’s hard to do crafts on the move. You’ve just got to find that spot and stick to it. You can’t easily haul around sheets of metal and a blow torch.”
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