Me. Ben. Renegade NY

Ben and I just got back from the Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn, NY (6/16-6/17). It was super duper ridiculous hot, but despite all the sweaty bodies crowding into the booths, the fair was another awesome weekend craft adventure. One of the reasons that I love Renegade is all the crazy, fun, weird people that I get to meet and talk to.

The fair this year was in the McCarren Pool in Brooklyn, just across the way from the field it was in last year. I have to say that the pool was a much better venue for the fair than last year. The gals from Renegade had the vendors in rows, as opposed to one giant horseshoe like years past. This created more of a marketplace-type feel, and I think it encourages more shopping. They also added food vendors: Schnack sold vegan hotdogs and burgers, and meat stuff, and two ice cream trucks and a juice truck… having food and water was essential, and I hope they have even more food & drink vendors there next year.

Getting ready for Renegade is a huge process for both me and Ben that starts months before with us planning to start working on stuff - my shirts, envelopes, and pins, and his comics, shirts and paintings. Eventually we end up planning and thinking about planning up until the last week when we finally realize that it’s time to get down to business. Ideally, I’d love to be able to say that I have everything ready to go a week before the fair, but, as always, I’m pulling an all-nighter with glue, buttons, fabric, pins, stickers, t-shrits, and my beloved Gocco printer. But that is all part of the fun. I think Ben and I had been up for 30 hours+ at the start of the fair. I felt a bit cracked out, and the heat didn’t help, and I think I was walking around the fair like a zombie, but in a weird way, it was fun. It’s just pure fun to be around like-minded crazy crafters and people who also have a soft spot in their heart for giant stuffed creatures with rainbow tongues, monster finger puppets, and chainsaw earrings.

Being around all the crafters last weekend has me inspired and now I’m even more psyched for working on Crafty Bastards…

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 21st, 2007 at 3:15 pm and is filed under Craft Fairs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.