BUSINESS

Artisan marketplace sets up shop in Newport, connecting creatives to community, tourists

Savana Dunning
Newport Daily News

NEWPORT — Wanting more exposure for Rhode Island artists and creatives than weekend markets and traditional e-commerce shops can offer, Subham Sett and Yuping Wang decided to set up a physical hub for artisan-made goods in heart of the city at Brick Market Place. 

Their business — Ohanga — began as an online platform in November that shares and sells work by Rhode Island artisans.

Subham Sett is a co-founder of Ohenga, a space in Newport where artists' work is on display.

“There's a lot of blood, sweat and gore that goes into art,” Sett said. “The biggest challenge I think creatives have these days is they're competing with different countries and big brands who are getting things from somewhere else, and there's a huge price-point competition.

"We are trying to sell on the value that handmade brings, which is not just labor and material, but also quality, and the artists’ story. So we tell their stories.”

Sett, a mechanical engineer by trade who is married to an artist, was called to the idea when he realized the difficulties artists were having promoting their work during the COVID pandemic. 

“For the most part, all these businesses are one-person businesses, and also they have that as a part-time endeavor. So they spend less time on making and more time on all the things around it,” Sett said. “COVID acutely pointed to the issue many of these small artists have, in terms of how they can reach out to their base.” 

The online version of Ohanga launched in November and features the work of about 60 Rhode Island artists and creatives. The types of artisan-made products Ohanga offers range from food and home goods to paintings and visual art.

The team behind Ohanga also curates themed gift boxes and recently launched a monthly subscription box with a range of different products from different artisans.

Ohenga differs from websites like Etsy

Sett said the distinguishing factor between Ohanga’s online platform and websites like Etsy, which also sells artisan-made goods, is Ohanga’s verification process. The team vets artists to make sure they are the ones creating each product and that the creators source the supplies for their art sustainably.

Some of the offerings at Ohenga, which is located at Brick Market Place in Newport.

“We have interviews with them to make sure they are actually the one producing the work and not having it made somewhere else and brought here,” Sett said. “In many cases, pre-COVID, we used to go to their studios and have that interview.”

The website and purpose behind Ohanga are also more grounded in connecting artists with the customers who buy their products. Each artist has a biography section on the website that shares their personal story.

When Sett and his team opened the physical location at 225 Goddard Row on May 15, part of the reason Newport was chosen was to connect local artists’ goods with the out-of-state tourists coming into the city. 

“If we were just to focus on the local community, it wouldn't be enough for us. We had to reach out to people who come here and spread the word,” Sett said. “Hence, we chose Newport as a first destination. It's such a nice mix of local as well as tourists that we could target both the audiences.”

Founders look to expand the brand

While the location and online store currently run as a market for artisan goods, the team behind Ohanga has bigger plans for the brand. It already publishes a magazine called Etch and a podcast that profiles Rhode Island artists and creatives.

Sett said the hope is to have the physical location also operate as a community hub in the off-season, with classes and live events.

“This is a space that is not meant to be a tourist trap,” Sett said. “Folks that are coming here that are tourists, we are educating them about Rhode Island. ... But it's also important for the locals to know that there is a lot that happens in Rhode Island that they wouldn't know.

"If folks in Newport, Middletown, the island, really want to know what's up there in Rhode Island, you don't have to cross the bridge. You can come here and sample, because we've got artists from Providence all the way down to South County, Charleston, that are represented here.”