Dateline Portland, Oregon May 2011
When I've gone to Crafty Wonderland events in the past, I've especially enjoyed seeing products that involve a significant degree of re-purposing of items available as "waste" or nearly free.
If I had gone to the Crafty Wonderland Spring Show and Sale in order to see a dramatic continuation of this trend, I would have been a little disappointed. As it turned out, I ended up being impressed with the items on display (as well as their makers), but still unclear about the business / commerce / distribution side of the equation.
I made it a point to ask "Crafty" vendors whether they sold their work elsewhere, in addition to the Crafty Wonderland Show and Sale. Selling on Etsy.com was popular, as was selling in the Crafty Wonderland "Pop-up" store across from the Multomah County Central Library. I found artist cooperatives, and booths promoting online sales sites, but I found nothing to suggest that a coherent marketplace for arts and crafts has formed in Portland, Oregon. Crafty Wonderland, itself, has become the default "offline" (real world) marketplace for Portland, but the organizers of this group seem to see for themselves a fairly constrained role, hence the rejection of roughly half the show's vendor applicants, a limited online presence, and the small retail space in downtown Portland. Already, competitors have emerged. See TheCraftyUnderdog.com's June 12th 2011 event at the Mission Theatre and Pub in Northwest Portland.
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My award for best new re-use-based products goes to the vendor who used heavy stock game cards as the front and back of small spiral notepads. Monopoly property cards, library book checkout cards, bingo cards, and playing cards from "crazy eights" all were used here, to very good effect. Speaking of games, another vendor used game boards (from monopoly, etc) as the sides of purses. Rice bags were also used in a similar way as material to construct purses or fanny packs.
The oddest product I saw was a small spiral-style notebook, which used cassette tapes to form the front and back covers. While there were several other instances of creative re-use of products, for the most part, I saw them last fall at CW's most recent previous show.
The best display technology I saw was a 3-drawer first-aid kit used to display cards in the slightly opened drawers. The retro Red Cross kit was designed for wall-mounting, but by opening the lower drawers slightly more than the upper ones, notecards were displayed very attractively on the vendor's table. Others used old drawers, or hanging streamers as parts of their displays.
Attending this season's Crafty Wonderland event only increases my interest in helping Portland's artists and crafters to convert their work, imagination and (re-used) materials into a stream of income. When art becomes a "paying gig", the creativity of Portland artists has a chance to reach new heights. "Putting a Bird on it" is not just a joke, but the legitimate (and valuable) side effect of a way of life.
