Made in Mat-Su

WASILLA — Bill Ryder is one of Santa’s more talented helpers.

In his Valley workshop, Ryder helps create unique holiday gifts from local willow wood. Along with other Valley artists and crafters, Ryder’s work was popular with last-minute shoppers at the first Made In Mat-Su Gift Fair at AT&T Sports Center.

Ryder’s impressive display of hand-made canes, lamps and candle holders represent hundreds of hours of work. Saturday’s show was also another opportunity to bring local artists’ work to Valley residents before Christmas.

“I’ve done craft shows for the last 16 years, and even in the Anchorage shows, more than 50 percent of the (crafters) there are from the Valley.”

With less than a week before Christmas, the Made In Mat-Su event was a good opportunity to shop for local family and friends, Ryder said, adding he also likes to have his work travel out of the state.

“It’s too late now to get gifts to send out, but I do appreciate this show because it is local stuff,” he said.

Like Santa’s elves, Ryder spends many hours and lots of labor on his creations.

“The canes, I can normally get pretty well done in, well, a long day — except putting the finish on,” he said. “That takes a couple of weeks, because it’s a hand-rubbed oil finish. Oil takes three or four days to dry, and I put six coats on.”

While a cane will take a day to craft, Ryder has up to 80 hours in some of his lamps. With prices ranging from $8.50 to $300, he has something for every budget. But staying close to home and making one-of-a-kind gifts for Valley residents makes Ryder brag about his home town.

“Wasilla is just the greatest area around,” he said.

Madonna Gerber also helps fill a niche for local gifts with her Arctic Treasures jewelry, which is made from silver and gold from Chicken. The Wasilla resident was selling her wares Saturday on her 25th wedding anniversary.

“I think this is great,” she said about having a Valley-centered show the weekend before Christmas. “The sad thing is Wal-Mart’s probably packed right now and we could use a few more people out here. You should support your locals.”

When it comes to giving, Gerber is her own best customer, as her friends and family “have more bling than I have,” she said. “They get the bling-bling, … and I know these are the only (items) like them in the Valley.”

Cathy Hales of Big Lake collects jewelry and admired Gerber’s work.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, adding she was shopping “for gifts, maybe, or maybe for things for myself. I’m pretty much done with my Christmas shopping. But, if I see something I like, I’ll buy it.”

Adding to the spirit was a group from Young Life, a Christian youth service organization that offered free gift-wrapping (although donations were appreciated).

“We are getting enough donations to hopefully cover our costs,” said Scott Helle. Anything extra will go to help take 40 youths to camp in Minnesota.

“People are so generous this time of year, and if they see us here we can take that headache away from them by wrapping the gifts,” said Tanya Larrabe of Young Life. “We’ve had some really awesome people come through. I’ve seen a lot of people, and the comment I’ve heard most is, ‘I bought this for myself.’”

Even with all the unique and odd-shaped creations on sale — from hand-made furniture to forged iron — Young Life was ready for any wrapping challenge, Helle said.

“We can wrap anything,” he said. “We’ll build a box if we have to. We’ll figure it out.”

Don’t think the hard work of the Valley artists and crafters went unnoticed. Kris Kringle visited the makeshift workshop, and reportedly didn’t leave empty handed himself.

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.