Homegrown & Handmade

“Just inside these doors, the Desimone Bridge and North Arcade hum with the vibrancy of a dynamic marketplace. Sellers have long offered the best of our region, from the Market’s beginnings as a showcase of local produce – stacks of carrots, onions, and beets – to today’s displays of handmade arts and crafts.  

After decades of providing farm produce to shoppers, the Market declined in the 1950s due to wartime incarceration of Japanese American farmers, home refrigeration and post-war suburbanization. Many stalls sat empty until the late 1960s, when the Market was rejuvenated with the introduction of craftspeople – painters, potters, weavers, woodworkers, and many more artists – who continue to sell an array of handmade goods. Today, craftspeople and farmers set up their displays for business anew each day, as local producers have since 1907.”

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Learn More About This Time in Pike Place Market History

With roots dating back to the 1960s, the Handmade Crafts Market has long supported a community of artists and craftspeople who specialize in creating their own products. Today, more than 180 individuals hold a craft permit to sell on the day tables. These permits are numbered, and those with the highest seniority – the lowest permit number – get to choose their table location in the arcade first during roll call, which is held the prior day.

Walk through the Market early enough and you’ll hear the ringing of a bell, traditionally rung by the Market Master and now by an occasional guest bell ringer, which signals the start of another day of selling at the Market.

Artists and craftspeople hoping to sell at the Market must first submit an application and are screened in by a panel of senior craftspeople and Market staff. Potential craftspeople are invited for a screening based on table availability, uniqueness of craftwork compared to the existing product mix, whether the applicant’s products fit the Market guidelines, and the level of handmade aspects and artistic involvement in the products intended for sale. These guidelines make the crafts market one of the largest and most unique of crafts markets in the U.S., with all products guaranteed to be locally handmade by regional artists.