BROOKINGS — A local young married couple — Will and Faith Engelmann — are pretty excited to have been juried into the Brookings Summer Arts Festival and on their first try, no less. She’s 22 and crochets; he’s 23 and does metal work, mostly copper right now. He started his craft when he was about 17; she started this past fall.

“It was pretty big,” Will said, of their being juried in. “It felt kind of monumental to get into something so large. We both got in. We were really excited about it.”

And they’re coming into BSAF with a bit different backgrounds than many of the older and more experienced craftsmen and artisans who’ll be showing off and selling their wares inside Pioneer Park on Saturday and Sunday.

Both just graduated from SDSU with baccalaureate degrees: Will in biology and education plus a minor in philosophy; Faith in political science and studio arts.

Will’s wares will include rings, bracelets and necklaces. Faith will have her crochet work on display. In addition to selling them, she will be selling patterns for her own creations for people who want to crochet on their own.

“It seems there’s a pretty healthy cottage industry, crocheting community,” Will explained. “There are a lot of crocheters right now. Nationwide, it seems like it popped up as a common hobby — as it tends to do when things are a little bit tougher. It became more common in the Great Depression and during other recessions worldwide. Other make-it-yourself trades become more common.”

And the meaning of their brand,“Gentle Druids Designs”? “We consider ourselves really, really rooted; we’re pretty close to nature,” he said. “We’re pretty close to our roots. We just like making stuff, in a thoughtful, mindful way, a little mysticism and calm. I think a lot of people could benefit from that. That’s why we kind of left it open-ended. It’s not jewelry and it’s not crochet. It’s just stuff we make.”

“We plan on making a lot of different stuff,” Will added, laughing heartily.

Landscaping and wrangling

By way of background, the couple have an interesting and circuitous story of their life together and how a piece of it ends up at BSAF in 2024. Will is a native South Dakotan; Faith hails from Massachusetts. They met about three years ago and married about 1½ years ago.

Will was born in Huron. His father was career military and they moved frequently. He graduated from high school in Rapid City.

Faith came, with her extended family, from Massachusetts to the Black Hills in 2014. They all picked up and moved to the Black Hills in South Dakota: grandparents, two uncles and mother.

“Her grandparents were traveling and they visited the Black Hills and fell in love with it,” Will said of his in-laws exodus from east to west.

Meanwhile, Will and Faith were both going to college on opposite sides of the country. He was attending Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona. Then in summer three years ago, they were both working in the Black Hills.

“I was landscaping in Rapid City,” Will said. “Faith was working as a wrangler at Custer State Park. She guided horse tours and showed people buffalo trails.

“We met online and I asked her to go get ice cream. We went and got ice cream and that went really well and we just continued to date. We went and hiked in the nighttime.”

Their first date was on July 3. “The fireworks were going off and there was a spark,” Will said, laughing. “We got married a year-and-a-half later. Now we have a little place with two dogs and three cats.” A little trailer-park community 4 miles north of Brookings.

He got a forge in 2017 and started working with copper, because “it’s a little bit softer and easier to work with. So I’ve been tinkering with that for awhile.”

He makes copper rings, copper bracelets and copper necklaces. Faith started crocheting this past fall; she wants to build crocheting into a business.

“Right now we’re just trying to build a little bit of a brand, a little bit of a following, to get there sometime,” Will said. He noted that the work both are doing is “labor intensive.”

Some of Faith’s crochet work is good-sized: like a sea turtle “the size of one of those inflatable beach balls. … I think those bigger pieces will bring a lot of pop to our booth, a lot of dimension to it,” Will said.

Looking beyond BSAF 2024, the couple have long-range goals, both in and out of the world of arts and crafts.

“I want to be a teacher,” Will explained. “I want to be teaching and probably doing this and all my other hobbies on the side for awhile.”

Faith wants to pursue her crocheting “as a day job and work from home and sell online.” Additionally, she wants to go to law school and then go on to practice family law.

“We also really like the in-person craft fair setting,” Will added. “And depending on the day, depending on the traffic, that could put us through for a good while. But we both have so many different hobbies, that we’ll probably keep cycling them through and making different things.“

Contact John Kubal at jkubal@brookingsregister.com.