the craft-o-matic

i'll start with an extended disclaimer, about the word "craft" then will digress to my original titled point after i've got the definitions ironed out.
i must admit that i dislike the term "craft"- i'm ambivalent about it, really at best. i like craftsman houses, i'm serious about craftsmanship (another term i'm ambivalent about- craft"man"ship? is this another word like handsome, meaning capable and strong and dextrous that is given to the male gender, and generally denied to women, or are we talking as in "manos" "manual" ? i like both and would much prefer to be called handsome anyday, rather than just "pretty". i'm also ambidextrous, which only adds to the confusion. another rant for another time. back to craft.)
i think of it in that light and i think of something serious, focused, meditative and skillful. something that work at its best feels like to me.
but there's a negative connotation to it to me, and this darkside is worth exploring in my mind. i am first reminded of these wooden lawn decorations common in rural/suburb coastal texas. painted shapes to look like plump women bent over, cheerfully painted flower print bloomers on display, tending the garden. i feel a little pity for it, and a little frustration/disgust. add to that, acyrlic yarn. add to that all that is lumped under the label "craft." the light in which the term gets no respect. when my mother says the word craft and means stuff that people have made, she uses a tone of voice similar to the one she uses when she says the word crap, and oftentimes i am an echo of her.
but whither this disdain? i'm going to argue that it's born from a lack of respect for what is generally regarded as "women's work" (silly dolly porch decorations made from nylons, excuse me, pantyhose and decorated with embroidery thread french knot eyes and some rubbishy acrylic hair, perched atop a mini broom and hanging from fishing wire come to mind)- uneducated, unskilled, and previously completely necessary women's work. okay. maybe not all completely necessary- the ornamentation of elaborate embroidery fulfills only the human desire for adornment for ourselves and for things like sacred spaces.
but quilts- a silly dotty old lady activity- were vital in keeping the folks who engendered most of us untaken by cold on cruel winter nights, before comfortor factories farted them out at alarming rates. (the sales i see on bedding confirm that many many of them do exist).
so, to reconcile with the term craft, i have all of these strange considerations themselves to reconcile.
and hold my head up high about the term craft, as in my case it is women's work, it is ornamental-necessary, and i execute it dextrously.
on to the "craft-o-matic"
i suspect this is a reason many etsy folk have two shops. one for supplies, one for work. or two for work. just different kinds of work. once the brain is spinning, really, the artist/crafter interprets the world in different ways that begin to mutate and change the output. i started off writing, took up crocheting and have continued evolving with both and i caught myself earlier designing valentines' cards and thinking about variations on the theme going, well it would be fun to make elaborate, one off art cards...
and then the (probably sensible) part of me says, look, that's not your job. you write and do this fiber stuff, and that's enough. you're not a draw-er, though you enjoy it sometimes, you're no print or paper artist. leave well enough alone, and just make them for love, for family.
then part of me goes, well, but that would be a nicer thing to do when it's hot than working with uh, wool?
then part of me goes, well it's not like that, it's felting experiment time when it gets hot.
part of me goes, you're not going to be able to do that all the time.
part of me goes, we'll see.

whew...that week's over

and last week sure did feel like a busy one.
i did two events last week, and wanted to make sure i had plenty of lovelies available. i'm glad i got all that work done, it was a nice boost to my inventory, but it was a week of late night coffee brewings and plenty of new pattern devisement.
i got to work with some new yarn (that addictive noro niji!) and use up some old- i'm now officially out of crayon green wool. i can think of no other word to appropriately describe the color; if one were to pull the color marked "green" out of a crayon box, this is that color. the new bangles turned out beautifully (of course i'm biased) and i love the spring scarves i made. now just to find them all homes.
i was joking with someone at hip happening on saturday about how it's like having kittens or any other sweet and fuzzy thing that needs a home. it's less like selling than it is having a part of yourself go out into the world. i'm not able to separate myself at this point, i still hope that the things that i make will be used, enjoyed, appreciated. of course i also want them to be useful, enjoyable and durable- thus the ridiculous insistence upon details.
so yes,
there was art walk hillsboro and hip happening here in town.
i think the first event is more popular when it's just a little warmer, which is a bit of a cruel paradox for me. last year, i discovered how hard it is to sell scarves in the summer, in southern california. it just wasn't happening. so i improvised. this year will be the same; i'm really excited about some of the ideas that i'm incubating at the moment (coming attractions!). i had a great time hanging out at styledbaby, and i'm going to be sharing more about that shop soon. voodoo child found a home (after probably being my most-hearted item over at etsy) and i was glad to see it go. the woman who bought it was wearing a coat that had the same exact red- it just fit with her. i think also that she and her husband found it funny that i had a series of classic rock scarves. who doesn't like a theme?
hip happening was this weekend- and i think many of us primarily made sales to other vendors. i would have liked to have been in the upstairs area (the show was in a historic masonic lodge, so the upstairs/main floor had this amazing old theater/stage thing going on, with flats from a play currently in rehearsals onstage) as the atmosphere up there was awesome. beautiful hazy natural light pouring in big old windows. however, those of us in the basement bonded and i met some really cool people. (who i'll also be sharing later.)
but, well, what? the economy? it was slow.
but that wasn't the part that wore me out.
i need do develop some duck's back feathers and protective oily coating so the multitude of offhand comments doesn't start accumulating. shows are great because they allow you to have face to face time with the people who look at your work, and they allow you as a shopper to interface with the person who made the things you're looking at.
but, may i say, there's a lot of comments made. and it's not that they're all negative, not by any stretch. some are constructive, some are interesting. but there's a lot of them.
some of the behavior i see at shows simply wouldn't be allowed in a more formal store. and that's okay, in some cases, but i quite seriously saw a person looking up a booth's skirt- lifting the table cloth up to inspect the table underneath. which was not for sale.
other behaviors just add up. there is the classic gap girl frustration with those who re-merchandise the merchandise- leaving it as thrashed as any teen girl's bedroom. or dorm room. which is okay, i like to arrange and re-arrange, i feel like it keeps the table from looking stale. but it's those who do it after i've seen them eating from their hands. or those who put their super-tall starbux down on my table in the middle of my work, and then start digging. the coffee on the table did annoy me, perhaps if this continues, i'll get a tv dinner tray and request that drinks be placed there, instead.
and there are a lot of picky little comments- "this yarn, but a hat" (well, that yarn doesn't have much in the way of what we call memory, so it would make a pretty unsatisfactory hat, trust me i've made that mistake before), "this yarn, but that color" (i like it too, but that yarn doesn't come in that color), "this stuff is expensive" (i'm sorry but i don't like to use petroleum yarn and the costs for that stuff are subsidized by the future generations, symbolized by the cute kids you've got with you), and so on and so on. i don't answer back to everything, but my argumentative brain thinks the responses, and so i get a little tired.
i think with the closer interface, people feel more defensive about not purchasing. they feel the need to make justifications, and i can see that. there's a ton of verbal tipping, too, those that aren't going to make purchases but give compliments. i got a couple of "keep it up" encouragements from women i'd just had good conversations about yarn with, and that felt nice. i also didn't realize that i've absorbed all of this knowledge about yarn, which i suppose is cool. there's a lot more to learn though.

i've set a limit on what i'll spend on a table though. i read somewhere once, that it's good to keep in mind how much the rental fees are and how many sales it would take of different kinds to make it back. i've learned this weekend to estimate on the low side; perhaps i'll think of it the way i think of gambling- don't pay a table fee that you can't afford to lose, whether it's six bucks or sixty or six hundred.

lessons, all. and the time can't be considered wasted if i apply what i learned.