Story and Photos By Joseph Sapia
“Made in Monmouth,” a showcase for manufactured or grown goods originating in Monmouth County, started in 2012.
For Deb Jellenik, who runs her Plumline Designs in Red Bank, this was her first time as a vendor.
“Somebody had told me about it,” said Jellenik, 52, explaining how she wound up participating. “It was free and sounded interesting. It’s a good way to get my name out.”
Jellenik’s items for sale included matted multi-media prints, wallpaper and necklaces that included her artwork – all items either fully made or designed by her.
Made in Monmouth 2016 was held Saturday at Monmouth University in West Long Branch. Jellenik was one of 225 vendors, one-third of whom were from the Two Rivers area.
About half of the expo vendors had participated in at least one previous Made in Monmouth, with an estimated 50 having been there all five years, said John Ciufo, the executive director of the county Division of Economic Development, which runs the event.
“It’s a tremendous turnout,” said Ciufo. He estimated 5,000 people attended, higher than the “4,000-plus” he had expected. Last year, 3,500 attended, said Thomas A. Arnone, director of the county Board of Freeholders.
“This was our best year to date,” Ciufo said.
Carl N. Steinberg, 63, who lives in Ocean Township and sells real estate and has a furniture business in Freehold, was a repeat visitor.
“I like to support Monmouth County and I like to see interesting and unusual items,” Steinberg said. “I’m a retailer at heart.”
In the past, Steinberg bought artwork. He said he also looks for items to re-sell.
Other visitors included Ken and Joyce Klohn of Tinton Falls.
“I do art work myself, so I was interested in possibly getting into the show,” said Ken Klohn, 80, who does pen and ink wildlife drawings, and who is a past president of the Monmouth Beach-based Art Society of Monmouth County.
Joyce Klohn, 75, said she likes the variety of goods for sale.
“Jewelry, woodworking, it’s so varied,” Joyce Klohn said. “Also, the jams, jellies.”
Other items for sale included furniture, pet supplies, soap, flowers and plants, cosmetics, clothing and other sewn products, food, coffee and wine.
Ken Koenig, operating as Shrewsbury River CopperWorks, was selling his homemade, formed-from-metal garden ornaments. Over five shows, he has missed only one, when he was out of town.
“That’s the first show I ever did,” said Koenig, 62, of Oceanport. “I had just started doing this (artwork).”
Koening sells at an estimated 15 shows per year. What appeals to him about this
show, sponsored by Monmouth County government and the university, is it is free to vendors – and the public – and he does well with sales.
Koenig, whose full-time job is selling school buses, was expecting to sell 25 ornaments shaped into butterflies, mosquitoes, katydids and dragonflies, ranging in price from $38 to $55.
Carpenters Brian Worland, 47, of Colts Neck and Eric Matheny, 40, of Red Bank are the Dust and Rust Brothers, re-purposing items into such things as furniture.
“Give stuff a second life,” Worland said. “I don’t like to see anything go to a landfill. It’s such a waste.”
Worland said he is more about preserving history than environmentally oriented.
At the show, the Dust and Rust Brothers had a light made out of a circa 1950s-1960s surveyor’s transit, selling for $1,175; a table made from an Alaskan gold sluice and the pine wood flooring of a circa 200-year-old Pennsylvania carriage house, $775; and circa 1930s-1940s apartment house-style mailboxes repurposed into a table, $450.
Lorna Weber, a Fair Haven artist, was selling for the third consecutive year. She had small-size oil paintings on canvas for $25 and reverse-glass paintings for $45.
“I like (that) it’s very open” – set up in the university’s Multipurpose Activity Center – “and diversified, people doing different things. I do pretty well.”
