garrisondesignarts
Decoding contemporary art and hand-crafting matters.
Darling Doll, Sweetly Stitched
An adorable addition to the Anna Griffin booth.
Photo by Stephanie Garrison. Image taken during CHA2012 in Anaheim, CA.
Bouquet Full of Crafty Goodness.
So pretty.
Photo by Stephanie Garrison. Image taken during CHA2013 in Anaheim, CA.
Yaaaaaaaarn!
A graphic yarn display – very Dwell magazine.
Photo by Stephanie Garrison. Image taken during CHA2013 in Anaheim, CA.
Airy Elegance
I enjoy taking photos that capture the texture of an object.
Photo by Stephanie Garrison. Image taken during CHA2013 in Anaheim, CA.
Glitter Colour Wheel
Understanding colour is a lot more fun when the wheel is made with glitter.
Photo by Stephanie Garrison. Image taken at the Art Glitter booth during CHA2013 in Anaheim, CA.
Stitching Sisters Education Seminar.
Eileen Roche, one half of the Stitching Sisters duo and Editor of Designs in Machine Embroidery Magazine, gives a presentation during the Stitching Sisters weekend hands-on education event in San Marcos, CA.
Photograph by Stephanie Garrison.
Stitching Sisters Are Live!
Eileen Roche, Editor of Designs in Machine Embroidery Magazine (http://dzgns.com/blog/stitching-sister-events/), and sister Marie Zinno, author of Machine Embroidery for Babies & Tots, photographed today in San Marcos, CA.
They appeared courtesy of Sewing Machine Plus (http://www.sewingmachinesplus.com/index.php) for a two-day machine embroidery hands-on education event.
Photo by Stephanie Garrison.
“She Has A Beauty Within.”
It’s impossible to not respond to artwork like this. In a world where beauty has been celebrated to a point of losing one’s self over it, how nice is it to remember that the most beautiful people are those that shine from their actions, not their looks…
Photo by Stephanie Garrison. Image taken in the Tsunieko booth @CHA2013 in Anaheim, CA.
Sucess! (In Small Measures…)
So, only because it’s still fresh in my mind, I’d like to note how happy I am that an online crafting article can pick up steam (while being surrounded by “sexier” content like references to currently-hot pop culture TV shows, Fashion Week and viral cat memes).
My BuzzFeed article, “21 Things You’ll Find At An Enormous Craft Fair” – not my headline but there you go – (http://www.buzzfeed.com/stephaniegda/22-photos-of-the-crafting-lifestyle-to-distract-yo-90gk) hasn’t done too badly at all for a writer that is currently unknown to the BuzzFeed core readership, about a topic that only about 50% of Americans are stated to pursue. (And shouldn’t crafting have a much higher percentage than that?)
I did reach out via e-mail and Twitter to the companies covered in this article. I also did reach out to the local indie craft stores that I’m a customer at, industry professionals that I personally know (and some that I personally don’t!), as well as other creative and business luminaries in the field.
The result? Encouragement, positive vibes, page hits reactions, re-tweets, re-pins, and a bit of a moment on Facebook. So yay – crafting got some mainstream love. I also got a couple of nice thank-yous from some of the firms I featured. As a freelance journalist (I am also a designer myself, educator and a few other hyphenates – but I had no personal stake in this piece and no professional relationship to anyone in it), it’s great when the feedback is 99.9% positive. One person did put a BuzzFeed “fail” button on my post, but there’s always gonna be haters!
So, lessons learned? When you have a legitimate reason to contact others in a way that can help them too (without spending money, I’m talking more about the exchange of information here), be bold and do it. They might stop and take note.
Next step: putting a personality to my activated yet dormant Facebook company profile; also, join Pinterest and LinkedIn (don’t judge; I need to be writing more than I need to be doing stuff online, ideally!). Woot!
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