Had a chance to check out Sparrow Mart at The Standard Hotel in Los Angeles. It’s part grocery store, part art exhibit, and all kinds of cool. Essentially, Sparrow Mart is a market where most everything is made from felt. In total, 31,000 pieces were handcrafted for the felt market.
The exhibit is the brainchild of Lucy Sparrow who first came into the art scene with her “8 Till Late” bodega in New York.
What follows is a visual tale of my experience waiting for and checking out the store.
The experience started outside, where a line formed to get a number. After waiting for about an hour, my waiting group was brought upstairs and taken to the market.
One of the first things that I saw was a giant display with all different types of seafood behind it.
It was amazing to me, just how much could be done just by changing the slight shape and color of the felt.
Most everything in the store, you could pick-up and add to your cart for purchase.
As one might expect from a grocery store, shelfs were stocked full of different varieties of felt items. This shelf had a whole bunch of different beer bottles on it including many recognizable brands.
Just when you thought things couldn’t get any more detailed or wackier, you look around and see something neat. It’s kind of funny how, like in a real grocery store, someone placed something refrigerated in the chip section.
No detail was left spared.
Each item was a piece of art, handmade with its own unique features and faults.
Because the artist is from the UK, there were some brands I wasn’t familiar with which made it kind of like stepping into a foreign market.
From a design perspective, it’s interesting figuring out how to reduce the elements on packaging into the features you want to show.
Here’s a zoomed-out view of the dairy and deli meat section. You can see the prices listed under the products.
Seeing just how many products there were was astounding.
When you were ready to check-out, there was a conveyor belt-like counter to accept your purchase.
All in all, it was a fun experience. I’m still amazed at just how much work and creativity had gone into making this felt shop a reality. It’s so cool what can happen with a little inspiration.
Check out even more photos available on my Flickr account.