As Kris McCoy sets up at the Saturday Mineral Point Market in Water Tower Park, she is surrounded by her artfully arranged wooden creations – a large buffet, numerous candle holders, decorative ladders, to name a few.
Mineral Point is home.
McCoy and her husband have lived here 23 years and raised their four children here.
But McCoy’s root run deeper in this Iowa County community. “My family is originally from here, my parents retired back here, they actually grew up here, and my dad’s family has a farm that’s from the 1840s,” she says.
Making stuff out of wood isn’t her profession. McCoy loves her job as the Mineral Point Middle School High School librarian, but said she wanted to try her hand at creating something.
The inspiration came when McCoy spied a long piece of wood at her husband’s lumber business.
That wood became her first “long linear candle holder.”
McCoy calls herself a major thrifter. “I love going to yard sales and thinking what can I do with this or that,” she says.
Pointing to a shelf she salvaged,“I think it was somebody’s shop project, probably in middle school because it was oak,” McCoy says.
She didn’t tamper with its original hooks – soda can pull tabs. “I just painted it up and did an antique wax and added (antique glass) insulators, kind of making it a unique piece. There’s not another one like it,” McCoy says.
When McCoy's project inspiration requires heavy building or drilling, her husband steps in. "And then I do the finishing," she adds, "My husband is a carpenter by trade so for him to still be able to do this type of work is fun, and we love working together."
Her husband has become more and more involved in McCoy's startup. "He can't recycle a bottle anymore. He says we should take the label off, there's something can build with it," she says.
