Last Saturday I visited Mill No. 5 on Jackson Street for “Love Buzz”, a pre-Valentine’s Day shopping and entertainment bazaar at a great new Lowell venue. I’m a great fan of Western Ave and the other artist outlets in the city and was pleased to discover that the retail outlets at Mill No. 5 form a nice complement to the existing cultural economy outposts. Words like quirky, eclectic and funky describe a lot of what you find on Jackson Street. It’s the kind of stuff you don’t find at malls and find online only by accident. Here it’s all in one place which allows you to wander around and make exiting and fun discoveries. Best of all, many of the vendors I spoke with not only did their work here in Lowell but lived here too. I believe the shops at Mill No. 5 are open on Saturdays but the best place to get up to date info on what’s going on there is at the Little Bazaar blog.

Here’s a sampling of some of the things we picked up on Saturday:

Tissue box holder from ARTsylum

Unique jewelry from Mae Designs

A food slab from a slice of a stone from a local farm, by American Stonecraft of Lowell

“records” from Dave Perry’s Vinyl Destination