Vendor brings the fey world into reality
For Moscow Farmers Market vendors, each sale or commission is a highly personal thing.
Tami Mirabzadeh and her daughter Bella, 10, can be found selling their handmade jewelry and candle holders inspired by Oregon’s Faerieworlds on Saturday mornings. Mirabzadeh said their booth is often located between Mikey’s Gyros and Bookpeople.
Mirabzadeh was born in North Carolina but grew up in both Minnesota and Georgia, where from a young age she was encouraged to exercise her creativity through crafts and other projects.
“My grandma taught me to when I was six and then we would crochet and cross stitch and she just always made me do crafts, which was not a bad thing,” Mirabzadeh said.
David Betts | Argonaut
Tami Mirabzadeh adjusts her display at her booth at the Moscow Farmers Market. Mirabzadeh sells handmade jewelry and trinkets inspired by Oregon’s Faerieworlds.
After crafting with her grandmother as a child, she began quilting at the age of 13 with her mother. After high school, Mirabzadeh took a break from crafting and has studied music and English since then at several different universities.
“I paused after high school,” Mirabzadeh said. “I think I made some clothes for Brahm (her 14-year-old son) and made him a quilt.”
After starting but not always finishing quilts for friends and family over the years, Mirabzadeh decided to start making jewelry and different candle holders two years ago. Friends helped her pick out different tools and techniques in order to successfully design jewelry.
“I used to play with polymer clay all the time when I was a kid,” Mirabzadeh said. “So my friend helped me learn new techniques and how to cover candles and do some cool stuff. After that, it was pretty much game on.”
Mirabzadeh and her friends played with polymer clay and jewelry designs, and that was how a majority of her merchandise is made, she said. But Tami also has jewelry inspired by Faerieworlds.
The fairie bottles are actually empty nail bottles. Mirabzadeh makes small mushrooms, stones, seashells and similar items to go inside the bottle.
Mirabzadeh said she tells a story to kids and adults alike that there are fairies who live on Moscow Mountain and give her mushrooms and stones and other gifts. Mirabzadeh then explains that mermaids have swam up stream just to give her seashells.
“Bella and her friends would ask me ‘How did you get the mushroom into the bottle?’ And it just didn’t seem as magical to tell them that I shoved it in the bottle, so I said that the fairies made them,” Mirabzadeh said.
Mirabzadeh puts love, friendship and stories to her creations, but she also uses a lot of recyclable material to make her creations, she said. Whatever money is made during her sales goes towards not only gas and other necessities, but also to fund this year’s trip to Faerieworlds, which is scheduled for Labor Day weekend in Portland.
Mirabzadeh has built a world and beautiful stories with her friends and daughter and Moscow is invited to join that world with them.
Jessy Forsmo-Shadid can be reached at [email protected]