October 19, 2010 > Etsy Meets Olive Etsy Meets Olive By Mona Shah In its newest exhibit, Olive Hyde Art Gallery offers a unique and modern approach for artists to showcase original art. In "Etsy Meets Olive," local artists will be introduced to the online art community, etsy.com and explore an avenue that expose their art to millions of new customers around the world. One of the biggest craft sites, US-based etsy.com is an online marketplace for "all things handmade." Launched in 2005, it now has about 1.3 million members, 200,000 of whom are sellers. Offerings range from the ever-popular bags, jewelry, clothes, and art to more specialized interests (i.e. dolls, paper goods, and needlepoint). Etsy connects consumers with independent creators and designers to find the very best in handmade goods while providing artists with the technology and information they need to start and grow their businesses. Etsy was conceived by Rob Kalin in early 2005. A painter, carpenter, and photographer, Kalin found there was no viable marketplace to exhibit and sell his creations online - other E-commerce sites had become inundated with overstock electronics and broken appliances. Ever industrious, Kalin, along with Chris Maguire and Haim Schoppik, designed the site, wrote the code, assembled the servers, spliced the cables and launched Etsy after three sleepless months. Etsy makes it easy to reconnect producer and consumer, and swing the pendulum back to a time when we bought our bread from the baker, food from the farmer, and shoes from the cobbler. Etsy Meets Olive Through November 13 Gallery Hours: Thursday - Sunday Noon - 5 p.m. Olive Hyde Art Gallery 123 Washington Blvd., Fremont (510) 791-4357 www.fremont.gov/Art/OliveHydeArtGallery