WV Living Magazine Comes To Snowshoe

Snowshoe, WV – Visitors to Snowshoe Mountain who want to take home an something authentically West Virginian will be able to do so beginning this summer. Speaking at the monthly meeting of Create Pocahontas in Marlinton last week, West Virginia Living Magazine’s Founder and Publisher, Nikki Bowman, and business partner Parween Mascari described the West Virginia Living Marketplace that will be opening at the resort in June.

While West Virginia already has a few well-known outlets for artisans and craftsmen, Bowman said the Marketplace will focus primarily on the artists of West Virginia’s Allegheny Highlands and the world that exists around Snowshoe Mountain.

“We’re not trying to be a Tamarack. We’re not trying to be a Mountain Made,” Bowman said. “I love both those places, but we’re trying to do something just a little different and to do it here.””Really, a good bit of the artists we’re featuring are from Pocahontas [and] Randolph County,” she continued.

Mascari, who, with her husband owns property in Durbin, is a frequent visitor to the resort. Spending time in Showshoe’s Village of retail shops, Mascari said she felt something was missing.

“I know when I’m traveling, I want something authentic to take home,” Mascari said. “I don’t ski, so everytime I was up there, I had the credit card but none of the things there were really something that appeal to me.”

Mascari says the West Virginia Living Marketplace at Snowshoe will have a look and feel unlike the other shops at the resort.

“When you walk into it, it’s going to be sophisticated; it’s going to be warm; it’s going to be colorful,” said Mascari. “The black and white tile floors and the blue walls and the red crystal chandelier I think it’s really going to feel like home, and it’s going to feel like something you don’t see on top of the mountain right now.”

Mascari and Bowman are currently working with woodworkers at Pocahontas Woods to furnish the space.

“We’re going to have some of their woodwork as our displays,” Mascari said. “We are working with John Wesley Williams, who works and instructs at Pocahontas Woods. He is doing some of our displays that will also hold some of our pottery pieces, some of our glassware.”

“We’re really going to show off West Virginia to the mostly out of state crowd that you have up there,” she continued, “and I feel like it’s something that they’ve kind of been missing up there for a long time.”

As the opening date approaches, Mascari says she is continuing to meet with artists who could be showcased in the Marketplace. Once the Marketplace is open and has established its roster of artists, Bowman says she anticipates opening an online version of the West Virginia Living Marketplace, bringing the work of regional artisans not just to Snowshoe Mountain visitors, but to people around the world.