Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Craft Fairs and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

It's been a while since I've participated in a craft fair (or written in this blog for that matter).

So when my friend Hannah told me this 2 day Art/Music/Film festival she was working on in Downtown Long Beach, was looking to host craft vendors, I figured it would be a great opportunity to 1. try craft vending again and 2. relaunch my brand, which has gone a bit stale from neglect since I've begun work as a bookbinder working for someone else, and started teaching more (aahhhh, security!)

Also, I knew having a solid deadline would force me to produce more work, besides a few oilcloth traveller sketchbooks.

I came up with hardcover open-spine sketchbooks, hand-painted paste papers, collagraph stamped cards, collagraph jellyfish prints, mini-photo notebooks and the aforementioned oilcloth journals. Not bad for making most of it within the last possible week!

Overall, I had a great time at Wilmore 9- I created most of the inventory I'd hoped to for the deadline, met a lot of cool artsy people, and learned/relearned a lot about vending at a craft fair.

Day 1: Hamming it up with my bookish merch

Stitching signatures into a traveller journal

Day 2: Not sharing a crowded space as much. Also, still working the same braids. Hell yeah, 12 hour days.

I'm actually surprised at how much I've learned and remembered that make me a better craftswomyn (yeah, I just did that) than the last time I did a craft event (2008? 2006?)

In a future post, I would like to make a list of the things i learned or reaffirmed through this vending experience. I'd also like to highlight a few of the other lovely venders I met here, there was some great local talent!

I'll leave you with this insight- never pierce and sew 6 hardcover sketchbooks the night before an event- you will get a repetitive motion injury. And now, after all the typing, I have to go RICE (rest-ice-compress-elevate) my wrist again...