Students gathered on a few cold autumn days at the Union Breezeway for the first annual Miner Market which gave local vendors the opportunity to display and promote their businesses.
The Miner Market displayed booths Nov. 14 and 15 with a wide-ranging selection of food, jewelry, photography and venue services, all meanwhile offering free food and music. Some of the vendors included Whole Lota Denim, Daizy Baby, AQO Jewelry, Case 101, Cell Kulture CO., Sessions Climbing + Fitness and many more.
Among the many booths, Daizy Baby offered unique jewelry, accessories and clothing along with other items, with their main item of production/sale being earrings. The owner, Crystal Lee, is a former UTEP student who graduated in Spring of 2021. Lee started making clay jewelry at a young age, dating back to her elementary school days.
“I’ve always found myself a creative person and I’ve always used my hands a lot for things,” Lee said. “Eventually as the years went on, I found my love for resin and botanical jewelry so that’s when I started making my own flower jewelry with also fruits.”
As many business owners aspire and possibly have the same dreams and goals they would love to fulfill, Lee has ambitious goals herself for Daizy Baby in the near future. Lees’ items range anywhere from $10-55 while her most popular items contain daisies and forget-me-nots.
“It [Daizy Baby] is always growing. Currently I’ve been doing (farmer’s) markets but now I want to (evolve) to possibly going (on) Etsy and from there making my own website,” Lee said.
AQO Jewelry was another booth on display at the Miner Market. It is owned by Aylin Quintana, an undergraduate junior who is currently majoring in international business with a minor in marketing. Quintana started her business during the pandemic in 2020 with only a 20-dollar budget but was afraid she wouldn’t make profit or even break even.
“I’m thankful for everyone that supported (me) as my business was a success. And, well its converted into something quite big to be honest,” Quintana said.
Quintana sells her products via Instagram and at local popups like local farmers markets. Her main priority about her jewelry shop is to make good looking jewelry with amazing quality which would be affordable for students that might not have much of a budget but love jewelry.
Whole Lota Denim was also a fascinating booth which was started up by three sisters with one goal, to promote local artistic talent. What once started as a denim boutique, is now a place for live music and DJs, which gives opportunity for local bands and artists to perform.
“For our launch, our boutique had live music in a warehouse garage next to the boutique. After (that) people asked when our next show was,” said co-owner Sierra Phoenix. “Make it for all ages. There’s like not all age clubs or venues to go to so let’s start it up in El Paso”
They had a show on Hallowseve of 2021 which blew up. After seeing it do so well, they decided to go with it. They’ve continued to have shows and plan on having more in the future. As their venue fills up with around 500 people it gets packed as teenagers look forward to going to events held by Whole Lota Denim.
Artist from Los Angeles, San Diego and Houston have performed here in El Paso. On Dec. 3, Whole Lota Denim will be having a show. Their doors will open at 7 p.m. with the music playing from 8:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. The show will feature local bands like The Revamps kicking it off, followed by Moth and lastly the show will be closed out by Obscure.
“El Paso has so much talent and it’s ready to explode. Our goal is to keep growing and have major bands from out-of-town to come to the El Paso scene and have them collaborate with local talent so we could expose these local artists to other bigger bands,” said Mia River, one of the three sisters and a current junior who is majoring in psychology. “Hopefully they can tour together and receive bigger publication while the also receive a bigger audience which would give us a bigger audience as well.”
The 1st Miner Market was a success as it allowed vendors to share information about their business and be able to interact with possible clients. While some businesses not only benefit themselves, it also showed that El Pasoans, like the owners of Whole Lota Denim, are willing to help and give other El Pasoans and even out-of-towners an opportunity to try and achieve their goals.
Gianluca Cuevas is a contributor photographer and may be reached at [email protected]
