Market Makers

Denver has a vibrant artisan scene year-round, but the summer market season is when our city’s creatives really shine. Shopping locally, direct from the makers themselves, has multiple benefits—more money goes back into the local economy, and investing in the creative class supports a diverse and engaging regional culture. Many local makers are also advocates for sustainable lifestyles by transforming salvaged materials, such as shards of broken glass, into unique works of art or by reconfiguring vintage fashions into contemporary designs.

Ahead of Market in the Park-et’s return to Wash Park, we caught up with two of our favorite makers.

Keeping it Glassy

After studying architecture, Anthony Adamsky founded his business, Adam Sky Glass, five years ago. He’d been working as an architectural draftsman but quickly realized that spending hours in front of a screen wasn’t his calling. “I saw that all of the principal architects sit behind a computer from nine to five,” he explains. “And yes, you get to do some job site visits. Yes, you get to physically see a building that you designed, but 99% of your job is all digital, and I like to build things with my hands.”

Adamsky found a kindred spirit in Frank Lloyd Wright, known for modernist structures like the iconic Fallingwater home, for which the storied architect designed everything, from the furniture to the doorknobs to the stained-glass windows. “My aesthetic is very inspired by Art Deco, and Frank Lloyd Wright got me intrigued by the glass world. When I started working with glass, it just kind of clicked with my brain; I realized, this is my art form.”

Adamsky started small, making holiday ornaments and other decorative trinkets. Once he began selling his stained-glass pieces at markets, he quickly found success and graduated to large-scale, site-specific commissions and public art projects. “It’s just so magical to be able to transform a space in somebody’s house,” he says. Upon meeting a local couple at Market in the Park-et last year, Adamsky was commissioned to create two “sister” Cathedral-style stained-glass windows for their Wash Park home. He customized the design to suit his client’s style, and his windows were ultimately given pride of place on either side of the living room mantel, providing a pop of color in their otherwise minimalist interior and allowing ethereal reflections to spill into the room and dance across the space.

Recently, Adamsky has been exploring furniture design, creating hybrid objects such as elegant wooden desks with built-in stained-glass lighting fixtures. He also created a six-foot-tall lamp that resembles an abstracted cactus, blending linear Art Deco aesthetics with organic forms found in nature. It’s a fitting direction for Adamsky, who points out that glass is eco-friendly because it’s inherently recyclable. “Glass can always be melted down in a kiln and remade into something new,” he says. “I try to use every bit of my scraps, so I’ll make little tiny earrings or wind chimes out of shards or repurpose broken bits into larger sculptural works.”

While Adamsky is a solopreneur, he says that artists in the Denver glass community actively support each other’s successes. “Everyone has such a unique style, but we all view a win for one of us as a win for all because it’s a historic art form that we’re all working to revive.” To that end, Adamsky also leads workshops for beginners, raising awareness and fostering appreciation for the process behind the artistry. “I just love to spread the joy of glass,” he says with a megawatt smile.

Threading the Needle

Heather Golightly started sewing when she was just a girl. “My mom wouldn’t buy me clothes from the store that I wanted, like bell-bottoms, so I just made them myself. It was very utilitarian at the very beginning,” she explains. “But as I got older, I also wanted to alter things so they would fit me better.”

After moving to New Orleans, Golightly found a niche in creating elaborate costumes for festivals such as Mardi Gras. She also worked for an interior designer, reupholstering furniture, making drapery and pillows, everything for the home. “I was a seamstress for a designer for a little while, too, doing vintage upcycling for her,” she says. Whenever Golightly wore her own creations out in public, she felt energized, magnetic. “People would always come up and ask me where I got something, and it felt great to say, ‘Actually, I made this myself.’”

Golightly moved to Denver two years ago and has been steadily building her brand, Psychonaut Stitches. Everything she creates is unique. “I always strive for 100% authenticity,” Golightly says. Staying true to form in the “copy-paste” era is difficult, especially as AI becomes more and more ubiquitous. “Trying to harness individuality in the digital age and monetize it feels disingenuous to me,” she explains; it’s why she prefers artisan markets and in-person events over e-commerce.

Interwoven Stories

Golightly believes in the power of craftsmanship. Moreover, the generational stories woven into each vintage and pre-loved garment she incorporates into her work add an extra layer of meaning. “My customers appreciate how much work and history go into everything I create, and there’s a sense of participation in the process,” Golightly says. “They know that there’s a human element to self-expression, to fashion and art, and a 3 a.m. binge purchase on some fast fashion website will never give them the same feeling.”

As a matter of ethics, Golightly doesn’t compromise on her core principles. “I don’t want to buy cheap fabric from China, or patterns generated by AI,” she states. “For me, every action towards the end product is imbued with my authenticity and everyone who came before, and I don’t ever want to say that this piece of clothing was touched by something other than my human hands, with my inspiration, with the muses by my side.” 

As her clientele expands, Golightly is trusting the process and building community along the way.

Golightly keeps a low internet profile, but you can follow her brand on Instagram at @psychonautstitches. To learn more about Anthony Adamsky, visit adamskyglass.com. Or just head to Market in the Park-et at Wash Park this month to meet them in person, because buying local never goes out of style.

Photographs by Emilie Trice and courtesy of Adam Sky Glass