09.18.06jen's take on chicago's edition of the
renegade craft fair got me thinking about craft and spending. jen sez (in part):
fortunately for my pocketbook, i'm just crafty enough myself that when i go to craft fairs like this i'm prevented from buying things because i keep thinking, "i could make that!" of course, i probably won't ever have the time, but it helps keep the cash in my wallet. so do the prices, actually. i don't begrudge any of the artists their right to make a profit (or at the very least support their crafty habit), but $35 for a t-shirt is sadly out of my price range. for the sake of all DIY designers out there today hopefully not all the shoppers were as poor (and potentially crafty) as i am.
i have analogous reactions to a lot of craft (as many people do - "i can do that!" is the bane of a vendor's existence).* the catch-22 in do-it-yourselfing for profit is its ostensible emphasis on technique rather than innovation; until one's skill level gets wa-ay up there, it's difficult to generate a really singular project with technique alone. that's why, i think, you have to give crafters credit for sheer labor (as jen also notes), and why it's important to award points for design - for, i guess, craft that crosses into that murky 'art' area. learning to generate needlepoint like
mine, for example, would take about forty five minutes of practice (an hour if you're clumsy), and my image manipulation techniques are pathetic (ye olde xerox machine's enlarge and darken features - and i use them badly), but i like to think that i deserve a tip of the hat for design as well as for elbow grease (as i recall, the debbie harry portrait took me about six months to finish).**
shelling out to a crafter was one of the really enjoyable aspects of wedding planning; getting married was the perfect excuse to throw around funds i wouldn't normally have at my disposal. i knew that i wanted handmade soy candles for favors at the reception; technically i could have learned to pour them myself and researched a wholesale supplier for materials, but a) unless you're a cyborg bride, taking on more than one or two labor-intensive projects in addition to the rest of your wedding planning is just asking for a nervous breakdown, b) the candlemaker i found on
etsy had much more experience and better supplies than i would have had, and c) it just felt
good to be that candlemaker's first big order. she asked me afterward if she could use pictures of our order as examples of her work for future clients, and she started actively soliciting bigger projects online; i loved having had a little to do with that.
i have no huge point here, but i do believe that crafters should (when possible) compensate each other for inspiration. when i can afford to say "good on you for making a knitted ms. pac man cuff! here's $20!", i do - and when i can't, i let them know i'm impressed. that won't buy supplies, but it's still worth something.
*on a related note, i find open source art like cory arcangel's super mario clouds really interesting. i can't imagine feeling secure enough in my own originality that i'd want to encourage people to replicate my projects.
**i'm not calling my stuff art, mind you - i simply know more about my own skills (or lack thereof) than i do about others'.
