Maria Wright quickly assessed the Swipple art collaborative’s booth at the Shadow Art Fair.

“I can’t tell the kids’ art from the adults’ art,” she joked.

For the third straight year, Swipple, a loose network of national artists with several local members sold their work at the semiannual Ypsilanti gathering, but this time they included work from second graders at Chapelle Elementary School in Ypsilanti.

And the kids’ work sold.

It’s the sort of idea that works at the fair and the kind of thinking that the Shadow’s founders are proud sets them apart from larger shows of the same variety in the area.

“I suggested we do something a little bit cooler and a little bit younger, and here we are,” said Mark Maynard, part of the Michigan Design Militia Team that founded the fair.

Twice a year, the Shadow Art Fair draws about 40 vendors. Some sell their art, others promote an idea and others offer services not typically found around town.

Britten Stringwell and Jocelyn Gotlib, owners of Hot Looks in Ann Arbor, designed gigantic barrettes and styled hair for $5.

An innovative group of upstarts from the Ypsilanti Cycle Powered Cinema Initiative hooked a stationary bike to a laptop and invited guests to pedal, which powered a video on the laptop displaying what it would it would look like if the cyclists were actually racing through Ypsilanti.

Andy Claydon, one of the initiative’s founders, wants to see an entire movie projected in Riverside Park powered by nine people on stationary bikes. Though it experienced a technical glitch here and there, the interactive station rarely sat empty, and Claydon was pleased with the amount of attention the effort received.

He explained the project’s early stages have been done in the name of fun, but predicts bigger uses than projecting movies in Riverside Park.

“When the apocalypse comes, this what is going to keep us alive,” he asserted.

Mark Maynard said the evolving fair likes to see its guests getting involved with the vendors.

“We’re trying to focus on things that are more experiential,” he said. “That’s the direction that we’re moving.”

If the estimated 3,000 visitors that come to the daylong fair at the Corner Brewery come back in June, they won’t find the same offerings as they did Saturday. About half the vendors are new each show, and the Michigan Design Militia is always adding new dimensions.

This year, the Dreamland Theater in downtown Ypsilanti hosted a “History of Ypsilanti” puppet show twice throughout the 12-hour day, and featured a dozen local music acts.

“We try to keep it as fresh as we an,” Maynard said.

But many old favorites, like those at the Swipple booth, remain at each fair. John Hoder, a Swipple member, said the fair provides members an opportunity to move their art directly to buyers outside the traditional art venues.

“It goes along with the philosophy of Swipple being an alternative to galleries and museums,” he said.

And, in the spirit of keeping it fresh, Swipple member Jason Wright, whose daughter is a second-grade student at Chapelle, asked the school’s art teacher to have the kids in his daughter’s class make paintings to sell at the fair.

All proceeds from their paintings and part of the proceeds from Wright’s work go to the school’s art program.

“We’re doing it to get people to think about their local schools and what a great school and program it is,” Wright said.

But some people at the fair had simpler and more immediate reasons for attending.

“I’m just doing some Christmas shopping,” Ypsilanti resident Jessica French said.