The Dustbowl Arts Market will set up shop Saturday on Campus Corner for the third time, a milestone of sorts for this brainchild of three OU graduates.

Katie Huskerson, Reese Truesdell and Dana Fisher worked together to plan a new kind of arts market for the first time in April 2009.

Their event — the first Dustbowl — featured handmade items and works of art and premiered in August 2009 on Campus Corner.

The next April, event planners of the Norman Music Festival approached the trio to host another Dustbowl Arts Market, and the second market was even bigger than the first, thanks to music festival foot traffic.

Now, the festival will see its third appearance on Campus Corner Saturday. But the road to these arts market successes is a trail of friendship made from intersecting personal histories.

Friends since eighth grade, Truesdell said Huskerson approached him with the idea of starting an arts market.

Huskerson had observed Truesdell’s “trunk sale,” where local artists sold unique and handcrafted jewelry. She thought Truesdell did a great job handling the sale and asked for his help to plan an even bigger event.

Fisher, a mutual friend, also got involved.

Truesdell said their garage sales attracted large crowds because Huskerson and Fisher were known for their unique ability to repurpose vintage clothes.

“People would be waiting outside for hours,” he said. “Just lined up and waiting for these vintage clothes.””

Motivated by the success of the sales, Truesdell said they believed people in the community would support a larger arts market. Fisher said the three of them worked well together and the event fell into place.

It’s like building a community within a community, Truesdell said. The trio wants to feature artists that focus on the presentation, quality and originality of their art, while keeping affordability in mind.

“I think all along our intention was just to give people the confidence to keep on making their own art,” he said. “Or creating and inspiring themselves to do better things.”