Rebecca Duerr of Dragonfly Crafts
June 07, 2009 | By desertmaidenbathworks
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Rebecca is a mover and a shaker. She is the head of the Hollywood Craft Mafia, in Hollywood, Florida! Her views on the Handmade Movement are spot on, and she shares with us why she has crafting ADD and why she thinks books are cool!
Welcome to Mafia Month. Hollywood Craft Mafia leads us off, and we're excited to have the Mafias participating with us all month here at Handmade News Featured Artisan Department. Also, check out the Main Feature page to read the interview that the Hollywood Craft Mafia gave us!!
Tell me about yourself?
My name is Rebecca Duerr and I own Dragonfly Crafts in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Do you have any interesting personal factoids?
I am the founder of the Hollywood Craft Mafia and we are planning our first annual craft fair, Odd Duck Handmade Bazaar, for March 20th 2010, at Old Davie School in Davie Florida. We are so very excited about this event!
Tell me about your craft...
Like most crafters, I move from craft to craft. I have endless ideas and want to try them all. What I ALWAYS come back to is book making. I make all sorts of books. Books with spiral binding or books with sewn binding or books with folded binding or books with no binding at all. I just love books!
Why do you love your particular medium?
Books are becoming a lost art in this digital age. Journaling has become blogging. People don't write anymore. People type. People don't send letters anymore. People email. I enjoy making books and selling books because if someone sees one of my journals, and falls in love with it, they might start writing in it. The idea of someone writing or drawing their own personal thoughts in a journal or sketchbook that I made is just so freakin cool to me.
Who are your influences?
I think children are my influence. I started making books in graduate school. I was going to Florida 
International University for art education.
I took a class on bookmaking and I fell in love. I had to think of a project for my thesis. It was just a natural choice to pick "bookmaking in the classroom." Making books with kids to teach them to love and respect books for a life time. All kids love books at first but some where along the way that love fades into television and video games and the internet. Trying to continue that love for books influences me to make great books.
Where can we find your work?
I sell my books and other items, such as cards, mirrors and some jewelry on etsy.com, www.dragonflycrafts.etsy.com
Locally, I sell my things at local craft shows. I will soon have a few wholesale accounts to boutiques.
Any advice to new or young sellers just getting their feet wet?
Just go for it. I didn't know anything about selling my crafts before starting to do it. I just jumped right in. Looking back, I wouldn't have done it any other way.
What does the "handmade movement" mean to you?
For most people, the handmade movement is the fight against mass production. I definitley see that side of the movement and agree that massproduction is out of control and is killing the arts, small businesses and hurting the environment. My involvment within the movement just seems to be a bit of a coincidence. I have always made things. I have always used or given away the things that I have made. The opportunity came to start a Craft 
Mafia in my area. And the rest just kind of fell into place. The handmade movement has given my creativity an outlet that it didn't really have before.
If you could have lunch with and pick the brain of any artist living or dead, who would you choose and why?
I wouldn't want to have lunch with anyone, really, because I don't really like to talk and socialize so I wouldn't be able to enjoy the experience. I would be freaking out the entire time. What I would like to do is sit and watch any artist work in their medium. Seeing an artist in their own realm, doing what they enjoy, is just so inspiring. You are catching their inner self,project onto their art work. Its just amazing.
What is your favorite type of handmade item to buy for yourself?
I love to buy handmade soap. Store bought soaps freak me out. I don't even consider them soaps. They are detergents. I actually started off my crafty ventures by making soap but when I got pregnant with my first daughter, I didn't want to be handling some of the chemicals needed to make soap from scratch so I set that aside. But you never know. I could go back to it at some point.
Who is the person most supportive of your craft business? How do they support you?
My daughters are the most supportive. They just love everything I make. They love using the journals and notepads and sketchbooks for their little art projects or pretend play or whatever! It incourages me to keep making new and different books.
Photos courtesy of Rebecca Duerr
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