By Karen Parr-Moody
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – If you’re “crunchy,” you know who you are: You’re a modern-day hippie in search of a lifestyle – and its accompanying products – marked by authenticity, environmental sustainability and a hands-on approach.
What is this lifestyle not marked by? Mass-produced stuff made with unpronounceable chemicals in far-off lands.
Since holiday markets are a staple of this season, a local “crunchy” group – appropriately called Clarksville Crunchy Ladies – is hosting its first Crunchy Black Tuesday Holiday Market. It will occur from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 25 at the Tree of Life Center at 30 Crossland Avenue at the corner of Riverside Drive.
Ten percent of the market’s proceeds will go to help a group member’s baby undergo surgery for a birth defect.
There is an emphasis among the Clarksville Crunchy Ladies on products that are non-GMO, all-natural, locally-made, sustainable and organic. The market will feature such products, including jams, body products (lotions, salves, scrubs and balms), baby clothes, diaper covers, crochet items, housecleaning products, aromatherapy and herbal products, handmade wooden and sewn toys, paper goods, elderberry syrup and more.
Leah Downey, one of the market’s organizers, explains: “We’re trying to pretty much hit all of the bases that one can think of when one thinks of natural living.”
Downey will be at the event selling her organic, homemade canned goods, including apple butter, pear butter, pumpkin butter, tomatoes, pumpkins for pumpkin pie and peach and jalapeño pepper jelly.
“I also made some medium and ‘slap yo mama’ hot salsa,” Downey says.
This group got the idea for the market after talking amongst themselves about Black Friday. They planned to stay home, deciding there would be no purchase worth venturing out among the crowds – in other words, no “crunchy” products that carry a deeper meaning than those typical of mass consumption.
Downey says, “Then someone said, ‘I wish there were a store we could go to that would have stuff that we could buy.”
So the Crunchy Black Tuesday Holiday Market was born.
Downey’s homemade canned goods include tomatoes, apple butter, pear butter, pumpkin butter, pumpkins for pumpkin pie and peach and jalapeño pepper jelly./Karen Parr-Moody
In addition to offering products, Downey says the market will also be a teaching platform for followers of the “crunchy” lifestyle. With some alternative products – housecleaners, for example – the general public may not understand their effectiveness.
“We really try to educate people and open their eyes,” she says. “You can go against the grain and it’s just as effective as the mainstream.”
And what’s the alternative to hitting a locally-produced holiday market? Big-box shopping among the restless, rudderless hoards and asking yourself, “What is it that I even want? And why do I want it?”
The Clarksville Crunchy Ladies know what they want: A deeper connection to their community and planet through the products they make or purchase.
Karen Parr-Moody began a career as a New York journalist, working as a fashion reporter for Women’s Wear Daily, a beauty editor for Young Miss and a beauty and fashion writer for both In Style and People magazines. Regionally, she has been a writer at The Leaf-Chronicle newspaper and currently writes about arts and culture for Nashville Arts magazine each month.