Amanda Hall finds her handiwork in demand
FARMINGTON – Some young artists dream of having their work for sale in a gallery some day.
Farmington’s Amanda Hall is awake and doing it.
This past fall, the 11-year-old’s intricate handmade beaded hemp necklaces were shown at the Braided Streams Gallery in downtown Farmington. Some of them sold.
Braiding jewelry started innocently for Hall at 6 when she was given a gift certificate to Liquid Sunshine, a local store that features, among other things, a vast selection of unique beads.
Hall got a book on making necklaces, picked up some beads and some hemp string and for a few months, tried her hand at jewelry making.
After a few months, she put her craft down and didn’t pick it up again until a few years later.
This past summer, her necklace-making career took off in the most unusual of forums.
At a funeral reception in August, she was sitting on the couch, diligently focused on her flying fingers that were braiding strings and beads when Braided Streams Gallery co-owner Mary Beth Morrison noticed her.
Morrison, herself an artist, said she was impressed with Hall’s focus.
And her talent. She asked the girl if she’d like to try to sell her work at the gallery.
“She was quite the marketer,” Morrison said. “She had something really unique, but not strange unique. They were wearable, and a lot of fun.”
Morrison said she was also impressed with the professionalism Hall brought to the table, saying she has good business sense.
With school starting, Hall, a warm girl with a generous smile, said she forgot about Morrison’s offer for a few months, but continued working.
By November, she had amassed an inventory and a price sheet. She took 10 necklaces down to the gallery, where they were displayed in a glass case alongside her business cards for Hall’s new company, The Hemp Boutique.
Two months later, when the gallery shut its doors for good on Dec. 24, four had sold.
“I think that’s really cool,” Hall said excitedly about her work being featured in the gallery.
The four that sold weren’t her first.
Last year at a craft fair, she sold $100 worth of her goods. Half of that paid for supplies; other half was profit.
She’s also often asked by her friends at school to make them jewelry.
Hall, who admitted to talking to herself when she works, says her jewelry line makes good gifts.
It keeps her busy. With her string clasped with a safety pin to a small travel pillow, her fingers move in and out quickly and she talks.
“I always have to keep my hands busy,” she said, “It’s really fun too. My friends think it’s really cool that I do this and a lot of them like this kind of stuff.”
Making hemp jewelry isn’t the only Hall’s only arty activity. She also makes dog leashes, which can take up to 50 hours, does old-fashioned rug hooking and plays cello, piano and chorus.
She hopes to do more craft fairs, and of course, make and sell more jewelry. But she doesn’t see jewelry making as being her lifelong career. “I want to be a writer or a veterinarian,” Hall said.
For more information about the Hemp Boutique, contact Amanda Hall at at 779-0868.
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