Meet 10 Artists Whose Passion Fuels One of the Hudson Valley’s Favorite Craft Fairs
- Kevin Coffer
- 9 minutes ago
- 9 min read
A flower vanishes in the kiln. Forty-nine strands of steel become jewelry. Vintage denim gets a second life. These are the stories hiding inside the work.
A flower is pressed into wet clay, then sent into a kiln hot enough to make it disappear. Forty-nine microscopic strands of steel are woven into a cable soft enough to drape. Metal oxides enter molten glass and emerge as colors that refuse to behave exactly the same way twice.
That is the part you cannot see from across the tent.
Artrider's Fall Crafts at Lyndhurst is a spectacular place to shop, but the real reason it rewards curiosity is that every booth begins somewhere else. A pottery class becomes a marriage and a 25-year studio. A teenage experiment with bleach and old jeans turns into a fashion label. A childhood crochet skill waits quietly for years, then returns between customers at a Catskills coffee shop.
From September 18 through 20, more than 200 modern American makers, artists, designers and craftspeople will fill the grounds of Lyndhurst in Tarrytown. The work stretches across glass, clay, fiber, jewelry, fashion, furniture, photography, fine art, wood, metal and mixed media. We chose ten makers whose pieces become even more remarkable once you know what happened before they reached the table.
FALL CRAFTS AT LYNDHURST 2026
September 18-20 | Lyndhurst, 635 South Broadway, Tarrytown
Friday 10 AM-5 PM | Saturday 10 AM-6 PM | Sunday 10 AM-5 PM
WHAT FIRE LEAVES BEHIND
Chris Belleau
GALLERY BELLEAU • ART GLASS
The Color Begins Before the Glass
Chris Belleau creates his own colored glass from raw ingredients. By adding metal oxides to molten glass, he develops a palette with shifts in tone, depth and intensity that commercially produced color cannot always deliver. Chemistry enters an art form already ruled by heat, timing and constant motion.
THE WORK, UP CLOSE
Chris first trained as a potter before turning to glass, drawn to its fluidity, translucence and endless possibilities for color. His work ranges from vessels and perfume bottles to fish, shells, curling waves and more than 30 flower forms. The finished pieces may look effortless, but molten glass gives an artist very little time and no pause button. Look closely at the color in his booth, especially the layers and variations that could never be perfectly planned before the furnace did its work.
FIND THE ARTIST @gonzoglass | Website
Dwo Wen Chen
THREE WHEEL STUDIO • CERAMICS
To Preserve the Leaf, He Has to Destroy It
Some of the most beautiful marks in Dwo Wen Chen's Botanical stoneware are made by plants that are no longer there. Real leaves, flowers and greenery are pressed into green clay before the first firing. Inside the kiln, the organic material burns away, but its veins, edges and textures remain behind as permanent impressions.
THE WORK, UP CLOSE
Dwo builds his stoneware through wheel-throwing and handbuilding, then applies his own color glazes before a second firing brings the surfaces to life. The result sits somewhere between a garden record and a functional object. Bowls, platters and vessels carry bright birds, blossoms and fields of color, but the smallest details may be the most extraordinary. Find one of those leaf impressions and remember that the original plant had to disappear for its exact trace to remain in the clay.
FIND THE ARTIST @threewheelstudio | Website
Robin Kittleson
ROBIN KITTLESON GLASS • KILN-FORMED GLASS
The Pattern Was Hiding Inside the Glass
Robin Kittleson's functional glass begins long before a bowl or plate takes shape. She works with hand-pulled murrine, patterned glass elements that are carefully arranged and then kiln-formed into a unified piece. Her background in textiles and design shows up in the repetition, color and rhythm of the finished compositions.
THE WORK, UP CLOSE
After more than 25 years as a full-time studio artist, Robin continues to bring an old decorative-glass tradition into contemporary objects meant to be used. From a distance, the surfaces can resemble fabric, mosaics or fields of color. Step closer and the larger image breaks into dozens of tiny decisions. Look for the individual patterned elements inside the whole and consider how precisely they had to be placed before heat fused them into a seamless form.
FIND THE ARTIST @robinkittlesonglass | Website
Fire transforms all three bodies of work differently. It turns chemistry into color, removes a plant while preserving its outline, and joins many small patterns into one finished surface.
LOVE, REINVENTION, AND RETURN
Noelle VanHendrick + Eric Hendrick
ZPOTS • HAND-INSCRIBED POTTERY
A Love Story Written Into Clay
Noelle VanHendrick and Eric Hendrick met in a pottery class at West Virginia University. More than 25 years later, they are still building a life and a body of work together through ZPOTS. Founded in Vermont in 2001, the studio creates pottery that is hand-thrown, hand-inscribed and hand-painted by its team of artisans.
THE WORK, UP CLOSE
The pieces begin with a rich chocolate-colored clay body, then gather textured surfaces, spontaneous drawings and Noelle's words about love, belonging and human connection. They are bisque-fired at approximately 1,900 degrees before returning to the kiln for a glaze firing at roughly 2,200 degrees. Cups, bowls, buckets and vessels remain useful objects, but the messages are what make them feel personal. Look for the words that stop you. The right cup of love, bucket of peace or poem about home can feel as if it was made with one particular person in mind.
FIND THE ARTIST @zpots_love | Website
KC Kropkowski
KROP JEANS • REWORKED VINTAGE DENIM
Every Pair of Jeans Arrives With a Past
KC Kropkowski does not begin with a blank canvas. She begins with denim that has already lived a life. Every Krop Jeans garment is personally sourced and hand-dyed by KC, who treats stains, holes, fading and wear as character rather than damage.
THE WORK, UP CLOSE
Her fascination started as a teenager, experimenting with bleach and scissors on thrifted denim. Years later, after studying entrepreneurship at FIT, she launched Krop Jeans in 2021. Today she uses bleach, color and handwork to transform vintage jeans, jackets and overalls into one-of-a-kind garments while keeping existing clothing in circulation. Look for the original denim beneath each transformation. Worn seams, old labels and traces of another life are not flaws waiting to be hidden. They are part of the reason the new piece exists.
FIND THE ARTIST @kropjeans | Website
Susan Daly
SNUUD CO. • WEARABLE FIBER ART
Crochet Found Her Again in a Catskills Coffee Shop
Susan Daly learned to knit and crochet in grade school, then returned to the craft decades later in an unexpected place. After opening a coffee shop in the Catskills in 2009, she began crocheting during the downtime between customers. What returned was more than a way to fill a quiet stretch of the day.
THE WORK, UP CLOSE
In 2023, a milestone-birthday challenge pushed Susan to exhibit her wearable fiber art in her hometown of Stamford, Connecticut, and snuud co. officially began. Her oversized forms pull crochet beyond the expected scarf, turning loops of fiber into sculptural pieces with serious texture and presence. Look closely at the scale and rhythm of the stitches, then notice how dramatically the pieces change once they are worn. On a table they are objects. On a person they become movement.
FIND THE ARTIST @shopsnuud | Website
Materials carry history, but makers do too. A pottery class becomes a marriage and a studio. Old denim begins another life. A childhood skill waits quietly until the right moment to return.
ENGINEERING THE UNEXPECTED
Mia Hebib
OBLIK ATELIER • SCULPTURAL JEWELRY
Rigid Metal, Made Fluid by Hand
Metal is hard, heavy and resistant. Mia Hebib makes it appear fluid. Through Oblik Atelier, a name that translates to form studio in Croatian, she transforms rigid material into sculptural jewelry that curves, folds and follows the body.
THE WORK, UP CLOSE
Born in Bosnia and raised in Croatia, Mia studied at Zagreb's School for Applied Arts and Design before earning a BFA in jewelry and metalsmithing from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Architecture, urban and natural fragments, and the relationship between an object and the human body all inform her shapes. Each piece is produced by Mia in her studio, where proportion and movement matter as much as the metal itself. Look for the point where structure starts to feel weightless, then watch how the piece changes as the wearer moves.
FIND THE ARTIST @oblikatelier | Website
Meghan Patrice Riley
MPR JEWELRY • HAND-FABRICATED JEWELRY
Forty-Nine Strands of Steel, Woven to Move
Meghan Patrice Riley can turn 49 microscopic strands of stainless-steel wire into jewelry that bends, drapes and springs back into shape. The woven cable at the center of MPR Jewelry is coated in finishes including 24-karat yellow gold and sterling silver, then combined with fine metals, gemstones and freshwater pearls.
THE WORK, UP CLOSE
Meghan hand-fabricates her work in Brooklyn using soldering, metal fabrication and cold-connection techniques. The engineering is part of the beauty. Interconnected geometric forms allow statement pieces to remain lightweight, flexible and comfortable enough to move with the wearer. Look past the overall silhouette and study the connections. Cable, tubes, pearls and metal elements are balanced so a sculptural necklace can shift and settle naturally against the body instead of wearing the person beneath it.
FIND THE ARTIST @meghanpatriceriley | Website
Colleen Hindarto Alford
NONI • NATURE-INSPIRED JEWELRY
Architecture You Can Wear
Colleen Hindarto Alford turns the structures of barnacles, coral, ferns, seaweed and mushrooms into jewelry. Born in Indonesia to a family of artists and designers, she studied architecture and fine art at the Rhode Island School of Design. Through NONI, those disciplines meet forms that feel as if they were discovered in a tide pool or growing from the forest floor.
THE WORK, UP CLOSE
Her collections borrow names and shapes from nature, but the pieces are not literal copies. Colleen translates organic references into rings, earrings and sculptural forms with their own balance, rhythm and scale. Depending on the idea, her process can involve carved or melted wax, folded paper or CAD. Look for the moment when nature and architecture become difficult to separate. A curve may suggest coral and a cluster may resemble mushrooms, but each piece becomes its own tiny structure once it reaches the body.
FIND THE ARTIST @nonidesign.usa | Website
These pieces live on the body, but the thinking behind them comes from architecture, engineering and entire ecosystems.
CHOOSING THE CREATIVE LIFE
Daniela Boari
DANIELA BOARI • RECYCLED-METAL JEWELRY
The Career She Left and the Studio She Chose
Daniela Boari had a career in public relations before one short jewelry class in New York changed the direction of her life. She bought the tools, took the leap and built a new practice inside a tiny Brooklyn studio, where she now makes each piece individually from recycled metal.
THE WORK, UP CLOSE
Daniela describes her workspace as a forest of projects. One idea begins, another interrupts it, and the work keeps moving until the outside noise disappears and a strange focus takes over. The resulting jewelry rewards a second look: expressive faces, darkened surfaces, unexpected stones and forms that feel both playful and deeply personal. At the show, look for the detail that changes the entire piece. It may be a tiny expression, an unusual setting or the contrast between a luminous stone and the metal surrounding it.
FIND THE ARTIST @danielaboari | Website
PLAN YOUR VISIT
Artrider's Fall Crafts at Lyndhurst takes place outdoors on the grounds of Lyndhurst, the Gothic Revival estate overlooking the Hudson River in Tarrytown. Craft-show admission includes access to the estate's 67 acres. Mansion tours require a separate ticket.
WHEN Friday, September 18: 10 AM-5 PM | Saturday, September 19: 10 AM-6 PM | Sunday, September 20: 10 AM-5 PM
WHERE Lyndhurst, 635 South Broadway, Tarrytown, NY 10591
ONLINE ADMISSION General $13 | Seniors 62+ $12 | Children 6-16 $6 | Under 6 free. Online prices are subject to service fees.
AT THE GATE General $16 | Seniors 62+ $15 | Children 6-16 $8 | Under 6 free. Buying online in advance is strongly encouraged.
PARKING Free parking is available. Off-site overflow parking and a shuttle may be used Saturday and Sunday.
WEATHER The show is outdoors and takes place rain or shine.
FOOD AND DRINK Lunch options, gourmet specialties, NYS winery and distillery tastings, and a mobile beer-and-wine truck are scheduled.
FAMILIES Children's activities are offered Saturday and Sunday, including puppet theater, face painting and a new scavenger craft hunt with prizes.
PETS No pets. Documented service animals only.
Come for the Work. Leave Knowing the Story.
You may leave Lyndhurst with a bowl, a necklace, a reworked jacket or a piece of glass that changes every time the light moves. Even if you arrive only to look, you will see the work differently once you know what happened before it reached the table.
A leaf had to disappear. Forty-nine steel strands had to become one. A pair of jeans had to live an entire first life. One pottery class had to turn into a partnership lasting more than 25 years.
Meet the people behind it all at Fall Crafts at Lyndhurst, September 18 through 20 in Tarrytown. More than 200 makers are coming.
