Tintypes, glass cactus and garden towers at the Agustin Mercado Street Fair

It’s rainy today–Christmas Eve–in Tucson, but last weekend at the open air fair at the Agustin Mercado the weather was lovely. Sunny and crisp enough to feel like Fall. The Agustin Mercado is the cornerstone of a redevelopment area right across the Santa Cruz river from downtown Tucson. At first glance it appears to be an old building with a large courtyard in the middle. I’m pretty sure it is a re-creation, like the Tucson Presidio. Anyway…we went there for Thanksgiving dinner at the Agustin Kitchen and I wanted to visit it again when more shops were open.

As with most street fairs there were the usual suspects under white canopies: jewelry sellers, potters, and painters. There were other vendors, however, that were new to me. Here are a few things that I saw starting with…

Bob the tintype photographer who was making tintypes on the spot. When he is not cooking up tintypes you can find his posts on Instagram.

Can’t figure out what to send to the folks back home? How about one of these Arizona souvenirs.

And for your own Arizona home there were these ceramic garden ornaments made by Pam Sensky who has a site on Facebook.

In very arty Tucson creating things from stained glass seems to be a popular activity. See more about glass after my visit to the non-profit Sonoran Glass Studio.

Do you think we should add more stars to our gingerbread man? They were in a booth set up to sell gingerbread cookies to be decorated for $3 each. The little girl’s “necklace” is amazing!

Then I left the street vendors outside and went into the Agustin Mercado, which appears to be entirely new but built to resemble old mercados with permanent shops and restaurants around a large central courtyard. The Sonoran taco shop seemed to be the busiest of all. Although the coffee house was doing brisk business, too.

And, finally, I came across these three students from Tucson High who were there to entertain us. Merry Christmas!