Allston-Brighton Winter Market comes to Western Avenue

For the third year in a row, the Allston-Brighton Winter Market is bringing four days of local vendors, interactive art, food and drink, a beer garden, and holiday cheer to the Harvard Ed Portal. 

From Dec. 12-15, the Ed Portal at 224 Western Ave. will host 17 vendors and artisans offering goods ranging from minimalist jewelry to all-natural skin care products and herbs from local farms. More than half of this year’s vendors are based in Allston-Brighton, making it a truly hyper-local holiday market.

Allston-based vendors include the Aberdeen Woodshop, specializing in handmade products for the kitchen, office, and home; A Gallant Designer, offering digital artwork, greeting cards, and zines; and Kate Martens, selling prints, paintings, and clay crafts and jewelry.  

This year, Zone 3 will be bringing their popular adult-focused Drinking & Drawing program to the market on Friday evening, Dec. 13. Attendees will draw inspiration from local artist Sabrina Dorsainvil to produce their own works of art, while enjoying drinks and socializing. Aeronaut Brewing will also be offering a beer garden at the market on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, selling seven of their current popular brews. 

Dorsainvil will also produce a specially commissioned interactive mural for display in the Crossings Gallery and front windows of the Ed Portal. Visitors can contribute to the mural through coloring and other activities throughout the weekend. And Quincy-based screen printing shop SelfMade Designs will be creating unique Allston-Brighton Winter Market tote bags, which will be available to visitors who make a purchase from a market vendor.

Returning to the market this year by popular demand, the Traveling Poetry Emporium creates unique poems-on-demand for visitors on a typewriter, which are then read aloud to you by the poet before you take home the only copy. 

At the market, visitors can enjoy food and drinks from food trucks like Bon Me, and live musical performances from local artists including DJ DayGlow, who has played sets at the Museum of Fine Arts, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and MassArt. 

Just next door at the Ceramics Program, Office for the Arts at Harvard, visitors can browse works from more than 80 artists at the Ceramics Program Holiday Show and Sale. Functional dinnerware, sculptures, and more will be available for purchase throughout the four-day event in conjunction with the Winter Market. 

Additionally, the Holiday Show and Sale will feature artist demonstrations over the course of the weekend — including wheel throwing and hand building techniques — for visitors to discover the process behind the works on display. 

Both the Winter Market and the Ceramics Program Holiday Show and Sale are free and open to the public to visit throughout the weekend.