Townfolk Gallery
Townfolk Gallery
130 W. Washington St
Marquette, MI
49855

Local (906) 225-9010
Toll Free 1-877-224-6225

Hours:
Mon-Fri 10 a.m - 5:30 p.m.
Sunday 12 p.m. - 3 p.m. (Thanksgiving to Christmas)

Town Folk Gallery, in the middle of Downtown Marquette, is an eclectic mix of sculptures, handmade garments, beads and yarns. It is also home to Marquette’s Sandy Belt: mom, crafter, artist, entrepreneur and friend to all who enter.

She has been written about in many magazines, and her patterns are sold nationwide. She also has presented one of her trademark Town Folk dolls to President Clinton. Her passion for textiles has been the catalyst for this mother of seven children to create handmade treasures while helping others do the same.

There is something primitive, basic and human about taking spun fiber and knitting it into a garment to warm head, hands or hearts. Few activities are as rewarding or relaxing as creating a hat, mittens, or sweater for someone you love. Creating something by hand truly is a labor of love.

Sandy started sewing to stretch the family budget. Sewing grew to doll making, pattern designing, and eventually led to her own business.
The oldest of six children, Sandy always wanted to raise a big family in the country. Life as granted her wish.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Sandy’s family moved around a lot, and Sandy attended 12 different schools before settling in Marquette. Her father was a bit of a restless soul who tried his hand at several occupations. When her parents opened an antique store, Sandy says she discovered textiles. “I loved old linens, quilts and buttons.”

Sandy spent two years at Northern Michigan University before meeting her future husband, Tom Belt, whom she met while visiting his brother, Chas, also an NMU student. He and Sandy became close friends. When it came time for Tom to leave, they found the thought unbearable. Instead of parting, they married in July 1972.

“Our marriage has lasted because we genuinely like each other.” Sandy says. “We were such good friends first.”

Sandy and Tom opened a furniture stripping business. They were living in Carlshend and Sandy was pregnant with their first child when Tom got a job as a fire fighter at K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base, a position he held for twenty years, until the base closed.

Oldest daughter, Theresa was soon followed by Patty. Then, after suffering a miscarriage, Sandy said, “I prayed for another child and got five!” The Belts completed their family with Elizabeth, Thomas, Chuck, John, and Caitlin.

With such a large family to support on a fireman’s salary, Sandy had to make the dollars stretch. She made most of the family’s clothing.
“I even made Tom’s boxers. Shopko had really nice cotton fabric for fifty cents a yard; I could get two pairs of boxers out of one yard.”

They grew fresh produce and canned the extra for winter. “The kids had their own raised beds where they could grow whatever they wanted, like pumpkins. We didn’t have cable or Nintendo; the kids played outdoors,” Sandy said. “We weren’t poor. Our needs were less. There hasn’t been a single day that I felt we didn’t have enough.”

With his fireman’s schedule of 24 hours on and 24 off, Tom helped with the child rearing. “Tom has been the most wonderful father in all the world,” Sandy recalls. “He really participated. Always out there with the kids, building snowmen, playing football.”

As the kids got older, Sandy looked for a way to earn extra money for Christmas or incidentals. She made dolls. Residing in an imaginary village, the “Town Folk” dolls were cats, elephants, horses, giraffes – each with its own story written under the vintage clothing it wore.

While displayed at the Art of Framing in Marquette, the dolls caught the attention of Northern Initiatives. “[Northern Initiatives] had money from Governor Engler to do national trade shows. They asked if I could do a wholesale show,” Sandy says.

In January 1990, Sandy, along with seven other local crafters, set up booths at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago. “It was huge,” Sandy recalls. “Totally different. Instead of hoping to sell product that you’d already made, you took orders to fill in the coming year.” Sandy soon was supplying places like Folk Works Gallery in Evanston, Illinois. “Every month the owner, Cease Giddings, had a different theme. One month it was Noah’s Ark. That’s when I created a giraffe who was looking for a mate. Then for Christmas, it was the goose doll. When angels became the theme, the cat dolls got wings and halos. Cease really pushed me along.”

Sandy caught the notice of renowned doll artist Susan O’Ryan, who wrote about Belt in her doll books. That acclaim led to the New York Toy Fair, where Sandy took orders for a year’s worth of dolls. “I could make seven dolls a week and still have time to design.”

The McCall Pattern Company, Simplicity and Indygo Junction asked Sandy to design patterns for them. “Designing is much more lucrative,” she said. “For instance, McCalls pays $1,000 up front, plus a percentage of the pattern sales. I still get royalties from those patterns.”

Soon Sandy was selling patterns to every craft magazine imaginable. She’s published books on doll making.

After the air base closed, Tom landed the job of Fire Chief for Marquette, and Sandy leased the building at the corner of Front ad Washington streets for the Town Folk Gallery. While hanging a picture in the shop, Sandy fell from the ladder and crushed her left wrist. No longer able to sew, Sandy found a different creative outlet. She took up knitting, which helped her endure when daughter, Elizabeth, went to Iraq.

Giving up a softball scholarship to Lake State University, Elizabeth joined the military and was on the ground in Iraq at the start of the war.
“That was a crazy year,” Sandy recalls. “The first time Liz called home, I kept hearing noise. Liz said ‘Oh, that’s mortars. They’re firing at us, it happens five times a day.’ I just sobbed and sobbed.”

Sandy knitted to calm her nerves.

Thomas and Chuck also served in Iraq. Chuck will go back February 21, his golden birthday. So Sandy continues to knit – a lot.

With her focus now on kitting, Sandy’s Town Folk Gallery has evolved to offer jewelry, clothing, beads, Classes , artwork and, of course, yarns.
Sandy says, “I tried to carry yarns that no one else had, that I had never seen before.”
She has always loved the tactile, sensual quality of textiles. Her gallery reflects that, especially in the yarns – a dizzying array of hues and textures from countries around the globe: Italy, Japan, Peru.

There’s a reason the term “handmade” has always stood for higher quality. Handmade items are made with care and with pride. But most of all with love – love you can’t buy, only create.

Sandy and her patrons understand that.
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