North Adams Popups Feature Upcycled & Handwoven Textiles
Weaver Megan Karlen, left, next to one of her creations, talks about the focus of the two shops at Friday's celebration with Sarah DeFusco of WallaSauce.
"We're two businesses with one mission. We can't really figure out exactly what that wording is after that tagline," weaver Megan Karlen laughed. "When you come into the store, what we want people to understand is that they're seeing how cloth originates, which is me at the loom ...
"People who come in are actually interacting with our project because the end game of that cloth that they are wearing, they put it in a bin or they throw it away and WallaSauce has come along and picked it out and they recreate it and they make it into new clothing."
Upcycling clothier WallaSauce and Conscientious Cloth weaving marked their opening on Friday with champagne and seltzer, celebrating a complementary collaboration through a grant from the state Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development.
Karlen and WallaSauce's Sarah DeFusco and Kirby Casteel were joined by friends, supporters and representatives from 1Berkshires and North Adams Chamber of Commerce, which with ProAdams, joined forces to use the grant funds for the Pop-Up North Berkshire program.
"This program is funding four businesses as pop-ups between the town of Adams and the city of North Adams," said Benjamin Lamb, director of economic development at 1Berkshire. "Today we are lucky to be officially celebrating two of those businesses in one unique space."
The location at 77 Main St., the former J.J. Newberry's, has been empty since Shear Madness downsized in 2020. The space was too big for one business, but just the right size for two, said Karlen.
About five years ago, DeFusco made a reworked shirt for Casteel, he liked it and WallaSauce was born. The Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts graduates have done a couple other popups and focused on selling online.
"We weren't upcycling originally when we first started because we were learning how to sew," DeFusco said. But they started to think about how detrimental it was to reproduce material that already exists. "Maybe six months in we decided to switch our practice into using what we had already accumulated, but then not buying anything new.
"And then we came into one of those really cool situations when you open the door and things just kind of happen."
That's when Karlen introduced her to a woman who's mother, a seamstress, had passed away and left a lot of fabric behind. From there, it was support from their peers, online sales and just being visible.
"It's free advertisement when you're just walking around wearing what you wear," said Casteel, who was, of course, wearing one of their creations.
Karlen was a painter for 25 years and then worked in clay before taking up the study of weaving about seven years ago. She's now working on a master's degree in weaving.
"I finally sat down at the loom and I realized that I was taking the threads, which are the materials and which are also the color, and they make the substrate and it just became a painting in itself," said Karlen, who's now working on a master's in weaving. "But it's functional so I was able to make functional work that also was art."
Karlen's loom and WallaSauce's sewing machines and materials sit on one side of the space and the products on the other. Karlen offers finely woven pieces such as scarves, cloths and shawls, and WallaSauce has a wide variety of hats, clothing and bags with custom logos. And there's going to be some fusion between the two.
"I'm currently weaving up 10 yards of cloth that I'm going to throw over to their side of the room and when I come back, there'll be WallaSauce on this too and I can't wait," said Karlen, who was leaving on a trip.
The grant will allow both businesses to operate downtown through September. The other popups being funded through the grant are in Adams: the Adams Incubator, a co-working space attached to Yina Moore's Adams Theater project, and Secret Sun Tanning Salon, owned and operated by Jason Nocher.
Staying on Main Street past September will depend on sales.
"If we can stretch it a few more months, that'd be great," said DeFusco, adding the grant has meant resources, more space for working and for events, and work on their website. "It's given us a lot of opportunity so even if it's just for three months, we ride it out, hopefully, we see what happens."
Tags: new business, popup,
