Story: Sam Cioffi
Photography: Laura Dudones
Emma Starkey gets five hours of sleep the night before Oxford’s weekly Farmers Market. While other students are going out with friends or relaxing on their Friday nights, Starkey is spending hours painting and prepping.
Unlike the Oxford town residents and students that visit the Saturday market as customers, Starkey is a vendor, as well as a full-time student at Miami.
She sells her handmade, unique coasters and wooden signs as part of her business “Renewed and Reclaimed.”
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Starkey first started her business three years ago as a freshman at Miami. Before she even began, Starkey had some background knowledge in woodworking, which she learned from her father, a woodshop teacher. She was also involved in art classes, and it was around this time that she began painting canvases for her friends.
After continuously visiting markets and realizing that other artists were charging a great deal of money for their wooden art pieces, Starkey began creating her own.
Once she began posting her creations on Instagram, people became interested. One day after posting one of her first designs, a sign that read “Home,” three people reached out and asked if they could have their own.
Momentum quickly picked up, and Starkey eventually sold nearly 30 “Home” signs.
From this point on, she began looking for ways to acquire the wood she needed, without having to rely on hardware stores.
“I like the look of aged and weathered wood that’s been worn in. I think it just gives it more character. You never really know what you’re going to end up with when you clean it up,” Starkey said.
At first, she used moving pallets that she would find or her dad would bring home from work. But, after her parents took down a fence, Starkey suddenly had a supply of wood that would last her a long time (and even continues to last today).
The demand for her creations only continued to pick up, and Starkey decided that she needed to establish her new business and give it a name.
That name became “Renewed and Reclaimed.”
Starkey came up with the name due to the fact that she only uses reclaimed materials for her designs. She also has an appreciation for all things old, including old houses, architecture and furniture.
“I see the beauty in things that could be seen as trash by other people,” Starkey said.
Her purpose, which is reusing old materials and turning them into something new, became her brand.
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Starkey’s creation process is something that takes some time.
After gathering the reclaimed wood that she wants to use, she will sand it down so that it’s smooth enough to be painted on.
Next, Starkey cuts the wood into the sizes she will need and stains them. The signs vary in sizes, from 3 ½ inches to 6 inches in height and a foot to two feet in length. The coasters are typically 3 ½ by 3 ½ inches.
The final step, painting the designs and calligraphy, will take a couple of days. Before painting, she examines the wood in order to determine the layout of letters and designs. However, she never writes anything beforehand in pencil, unless it’s an image such as a state, then she will trace it.
Occasionally, mistakes are made in the creation process. But, over the years, Starkey found a solution. A friend of hers once told her that nail polish remover will remove any paint that is undesired on wood.
“I have messed up quite a few times on some boards. This literally is saving me so much time and sanity honestly,” Starkey said.
Sometimes to prevent mistakes from happening, Starkey will take a picture of the wood and use a design pencil on her iPad to practice writing out her ideas on the image.
Most of her designs are focused around Miami or Oxford, but she does custom creations for people as well. People will reach out to her, a lot of times through Instagram, and ask her to make them a unique product.
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Starkey became involved at the Oxford Farmers Market fall semester last year. She went to the market with her business and acquired about the process for becoming a vendor. The Uptown market follows a “make it, bake it or grow it” rule for its vendors—everything must be homemade.
Starkey, with her reclaimed materials and homemade signs, fit the description for what the market was looking for. They told her that she could come and set up shop on any Saturday that she wanted to, all she would have to do is pay $15 and arrive about an hour before customers arrive.
Starkey plans out the days that she will sell at the market up to two weeks in advance. On Fridays, the day before the market, she spends the majority of her time preparing. She sets up everything to be taken out to her car and makes sure that she has change for her transactions, as well as bags for the customers.
On the day of the market, she usually arrives about 40 minutes before the start in order to set up. At 9 a.m., during the “winter” hours, the market opens and customers begin arriving. The major of the first customers are locals, with the student customers arriving later in the morning.
For Starkey, her peak hours for selling are between 10 a.m. and 11:45 a.m, when the students, who are her target customer, begin arriving.
Keeping the students in mind, Starkey tries to make her prices affordable. The coasters are $5 a piece and signs are no more than $20.
“Being a college student, I know money is not always freely to be given. I like to let students still be able to buy things but not break the bank,” Starkey said.
On a typical Saturday, Starkey tries to come with about 30 to 40 coasters and 15 signs. By the time the market ends, she usually leaves with about 10 coasters and 5 or 6 signs.
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Starkey, who will graduate in May, plans on taking a gap year before entering graduate school. During this time, she wants to give “Renewed and Reclaimed” more attention to see what it might become.
In doing so, she wants to branch out of the Oxford market scene, potentially into the Cincinnati area.
She also wants to continue working on marketing through Instagram (@renewedandreclaimed_ ) and growing a larger following.
While moving around after graduation might affect whether or not Starkey stays as a vendor at the Oxford Farmers Market, she hasn’t completely eliminated the possibility of staying.
“I do really enjoy Oxford, so I’m not totally ruling that one out yet. It’s a fun one to be at,” Starkey said.