Until the Silly Market first opened in 2006, Sundays on Park City’s Main St. were quiet. On June 1 this year, the lower half of Main St. was bustling with artists, shoppers and those just looking. Live music played in the background of the street churn.
Silly Market Executive Director Kate McChesney said today’s market boasts almost 200 vendors compared to the 35 it first started with. In the early days, some 500 people would come out each Sunday. Today, the crowds have grown to 16,000 every week.
The first of 11 markets for 2025 opened Sunday morning. In addition to the vendors selling their wares, the market employs face painters and balloon artists and staffs an area just for kids. The free bike valet returned this year as well as food vendors and the beer garden.
One of the longest tenured artists on the street was leather worker Kathy Pederson of Boomdog Creations. She’s been selling her one-of-a-kind dog collars on Main St. for 15 years.
Originally from Las Vegas, Pederson spent her first winter in Park City in 2009 after her husband fell ill and had to spend months in a Salt Lake area hospital. It was then that she began her second career, making leather dog collars.
“I was bored because I had to stay here in the winter,” Pederson explained. “So, I opened up one of my drawers, and there were my old western belts, and I said, ‘Oh, my labs were there [in the room].' And I said, ‘Oh, this will make an amazing dog collar.’ That's what started it.”
The business has expanded to include dog harnesses, dog bowls and wrist cuffs using repurposed hand-tooled leather. Vintage rhinestone jewelry and authentic silver conchos are incorporated into her designs, ensuring no two pieces are exactly alike.
Alexis Bernard is the owner and baker at Your Local Bread B****. This is her first year at the Silly Market. She began making sourdough to keep her busy while her athlete-husband was on the road.
“My husband is a professional football player, so he would leave for a few months, and so I just did a hobby every single day that made me happy,” Bernard said. “And one of those hobbies was making sourdough starter. It took a few weeks to get started going and I started making sourdough, like lots of people, but it just took off, and now it's a business that's growing.”
Bernard will be attending all 11 markets. She brought 400 loaves to her first Silly Market and expected to go home empty-handed.
“We will see,” she said. “Normally we sell out. But I have not done Park Silly Market before. I heard it's a beast, and so I wanted to show up and try to bring as many loaves as I could.”
In addition to sourdough, she bakes cinnamon raisin, rosemary garlic and jalapeno cheddar loaves.
Kathleen Royster is a ceramicist who uses porcelain clay to create a modern version of an ancient Korean technique. She’s been selling her work in Park City for the last 12 seasons.
“Ceramics has a long history of blue and whiteware, and I use an old Korean technique called ‘Mishima,’ and it's an inlaid colored clay,” Royster said. “So, I draw the lines with an X-Acto™ knife, paint over it with a blue slip, and it gets down in the cuts, and then I wipe it clean. So, I just contemporized a 1000-year-old technique.”
Royster is a Helper resident and has a gallery on Helper’s Main St. She said she’s done great business during the Helper Saturday Vibes market – another open-air market that was started there five years ago by the founder of the Silly Market Kimberly Kuehn.
This year’s Park Silly Market will be open every Sunday in June, with two markets in July (13 and 20). It then takes a break until August 31, returning for three more markets in September, with the last one on September 21.
