Renegade Craft Fair 2008 : Brooklyn
06.25.08 By Collin DavidAfter a weekend surrounded by high priced high fashion and high priced ‘Affordable Art’, I needed a low-priced respite. I needed to be among real people, real artisans, and real things I could afford. I’m a man in love with all extremes - I’ll chase my filet mignon with a bag of Cheetos, and I’ll relish both experiences.
New York City had chosen the weekend of June 14th to somehow exchange climates with the muggiest depths of Hell itself, so while Brooklyn’s Renegade Craft Fair was an awesome delight, the weather made viscous slugs of us all, sleepily oozing our way around the abandoned and emptied McCarren Park Pool. For such a vast collection of DIY-ers, recyclers, and use-every-part-ers, holding the Fair in an unused pool was an exceptional and clever use of space.
When I attended Renegade 2 years ago, I was charmed by the handmade feel of everything. Magazines and comics were stapled together, many cloth things had visible stitching, and loose ends were the norm. Signs were handpainted. It was an aesthetic that I learned to love, and even embraced in my own works - the hands deliver the heart and soul, as imperfect as they may be.
It’s not that this year’s collection of vendors were off-putting, but there’s definitely a climate change in the crafting scene, if Renegade is any evidence. Gone were many of the smartly recycled items from the past - old books and scraps of wood and LPs turned into new things - and replaced by glossy, printed signs for many of the vendors, and mini-mass-produced items at almost every table.
What I’ve always loved about the young crafting scene is that you could look around, get some ideas, and with a little bit of ingenuity, make something similar to what you’ve seen - but with your own flair. It’s that kind of open source crafting that really builds the community into something strong. Pressing prints on your own small printing press is a completely different entity than sending them out to be digitally, professionally replicated, and while I can appreciate and see the merits of both things, the latter seems to be less in the spirit of a ‘Craft Fair’. It makes the process inaccessible, and even worse, costly. No, you can’t do it yourself anymore, and there’s no smart acronym for whatever the opposite of DIY is.
And maybe it’s the cost of living going berserk everywhere, but prices seemed to be twice as much as what they were 2 years ago. Crafters are finding it harder to survive while doing their art, and the cost of materials has also gone up. None of this is to say that any of the artists there were anything less than inspiring - I fell in love with everything, no matter where it came from - carefully-sewn, cartoonish trophy heads, a whole array of great t-shirts and art prints, squid things and robots everywhere, adorable dolls and crocheted monsters that I would have loved to take home with me, were it not for premium costs.
Still, in the true spirit of Do-It-Yourself, there was one girl set up in a tall, vending machine-shaped tent, advertised as a ‘Postcard Machine’. Insert $2 and you’d get a postcard fed back out to you - which would be drawn on the spot by the artist hidden inside of the mini-tent. Somehow, the entire heart and soul of the Fair were inside of that ‘device’ - everything that I loved form previous experiences, which felt absent from this year. An inexpensive, precious item, made by hand, accompanied by a personal experience - isn’t that at the core of crafting?
The heat made the day a sweaty blur, and while I was hesitant to touch too many things lest I leave a moist handprint on them, I felt the need to support my fellow creators. I purchased a small, felt squid doll-thing (which is holding a tray of sushi) for $19 from Cleo Dee, and a set of 10 ‘Presidential Facial Hair Hall of Fame’ buttons to add to my button collection. Plus, I secretly love Presidential trivia, not to mention how funny they looked, and my affection for the World Beard and Moustache Championships. The set of 10 was $20, and even though I own a button maker, I felt the moral need to perpetuate the crafting scene with my wallet. 1” buttons for $2 each, however, is just the climate of things. I miss the 4-for-a-dollar days. Man, I stocked up that year. So, after $40 spent, the rewards were in quality, not quantity.
Nonetheless, I won’t concern myself with having a pocket full of small bills next year, since everything cost over 20 dollars anyhow. I WILL be returning, of course - even the intense heat couldn’t keep me away from such a gathering of pale, dark-haired crafty girls. Oh, and they neat stuff they make.
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Article Tags: Brooklyn, Craft, crafting, event, NYC, renegade craft fair================
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