Discovering the Local Handmade Scene
June 24, 2009 | By
Online crafting communities bring people from all over the world together, but they also potentially alienate crafters from their local, handmade scene. Like many artisans, I live in a small town that doesn’t seem like it has much of a handmade scene and have been reliant on the Internet for my crafting community.
Yet I knew that there had to be a handmade scene of some sort. How else could the retail craft stores in the area stay open? After all, university students and Martha-Stewart-wannabes could only account for so much of the craft business in a town of roughly 40,000 inhabitants. I decided that I would find the local handmade scene no matter where it might be hiding!
My plan: To look into the locally owned craft suppliers, go to the local craft fairs, and research local organizations.
Your mission, if you chose to accept it, is to explore your own town to find your handmade scene and report back.
Step One: Locally Owned Craft Suppliers
Locally owned businesses that cater to artisans are a logical first step in any search for a handmade community. Many of these businesses seem to be located downtown, especially if there is a historic downtown district. Businesses that are frequented by artisans are places to not only take classes and gather supplies, but are places for artisans to network and advertise themselves. Sometimes it’s a bulletin board filled with business cards, and sometimes, it’s a business that also displays locally created work. Spend enough time in one of these places and you’re likely to learn the breadth and depth of the handmade scene in your community.
In my town, Bliss Beads Studio and Gallery is one of the stores to frequent. Alison Johnson, a beading enthusiast and artist, whose goal is “to foster creativity and promote artistic endeavors among a community of people”, owns Bliss Beads. To accomplish her goal of fostering community, Johnson not only sells her own flamework glass beads and teaches flamework classes but sponsors workshops by other crafters and artists as well as showing local artists’ work.
There are plenty of other types of businesses that might serve as places for artisans to inhabit. In my town, these businesses are the local, arty coffee shop, The House Café, and local bookstores. In businesses like these, there is usually local art on the walls, a regional band playing on the weekends, and the owners are almost always looking for willing artisans to display their work.
Step Two: Craft Fairs
Now that summer is here, craft fairs are popping up with heart-warming frequency. Yet “craft fair” is a term that seems wrongly applied on a regular basis. Sure, there are plenty of things to buy at anything labeled a “craft fair”, but how many of those things were handmade by the people selling them? Not as many as one might expect. However, among the imported, “indigenous” art and the mass-produced bean-filled critters, there are still a few people who are making their own work to sell.
Find a craft fair and spend a few hours wandering around it. A lot of the artisans that are making their own work are going to be local makers. Talk to them. Makers of any sort like to talk about their work, other people’s work that they like, businesses that you might not know about, and organizations that they are members of.
At a local art and craft fair I went to a couple of weeks ago, I met printmakers Erin Nolan of Pejnolan Design and Alfred Stark of Alfred Stark, Prints and Kites, woodworker Robert L. Kerwin, and metalworker John Challand. Through these artisans, I learned about the local art organization Kishwaukee Valley Art League that sponsors a variety of local shows, as well as being one of the Sycamore Craft Fair’s organizers, and a business that caters specifically to woodworkers called The Hardwood Connection that also has an in-house gallery. I also found out about an independent, local art school called Art Attack School of Art that teaches classes for all ages and all levels of skill and has a gallery that shows work by local artists and crafters.
Don’t just go to the craft fairs in a few town-radius of your home. Expand to attending regional art and craft fairs. A lot of local artisans exhibit throughout the region and don’t always make it to every fair. The more fairs you attend, the more artisans you’ll meet.
Step Three: Organizations
As much as discovering your local handmade scene is a lot of legwork, finding local handmade organizations is easier online. Now, I know that I said that the Internet has a tendency to alienate us from each other, but a lot of these organizations don’t necessarily have an office, which means that their websites are the places to go for information. Just follow up and talk to the people in the organization. Also, the good thing about these organizations having an online presence, in addition to a local presence, is that these organizations usually have links to other local and regional organizations as well as links to area competitions and member portfolios.
Although I learned about the Kishwaukee Valley Art League from its Vice President Erin Nolan, the KVAL site provided useful information on upcoming exhibitions, competitions, and other local artisan groups. Also, while exploring my local handmade scene, I learned about Yarn Geeks, a local stitch-and-bitch, that meets at the Yarn Exchange on Friday afternoons.
A lot of these organizations have membership applications and negligible dues. Yet for these minor inconveniences, there are a plethora of opportunities to be involved in your handmade scene.
These are just a few of the steps that you might take to further your awareness of your local handmade scene including local artists and crafters. Hopefully, these steps will allow you to explore your community more fully. Now, go! Discover! And, please, report back with your experiences.
Photos courtesy of Art Attack School of Art, Artists in Bartlett, Bliss Beads Studio and Gallery, Erin Nolan, Alfred Stark, and Marian Swenson of KVAL.
'Trie is an ex-academic geek who spends her free-time arting and crafting, working on her webcomic ...quixotic or not, and blogging.
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