Crafty Bastards Vendor Q&A with Loyalty & Blood!

Last year, we didn’t get to post all the Q&As of vendors who participated in the 2007 Crafty Bastards fair, so here they are now!

Loyalty & Blood is the new name for the Brooklyn-based fashion/jewelry line formerly dubbed BANG. The craft line is aptly named, founded on the long-time partnership between Maggie Doyle and David Denosowicz who both studied fine arts in grad school together.

Loyalty & Blood’s darkly themed screenprints score high on recognizability with emblems that are often stark, minimalist and sometimes downright eerie. (Check out the close-up of the T-shirt featuring a page from Picasso’s FBI files! pictured below). Maggie & David also took some time to share some inspiring stories with us about their craft journey. Enjoy!

1. How long have you been making things?

Maggie: As long as I can remember – I favored crayons and cardboard boxes over dolls. David and I both have our BFA and MFA in fine arts. Our BFA is in metalsmithing and for our MFA we focused on sculpture and installations at School of Visual Arts – we moved to NYC in 2002 for grad school and never left!

David: I would hang out in my dad’s woodshop and collect scraps of wood to make objects. My father also does leather tooling as a hobby, so I would fool around with that too. Me and my friends taught ourselves how to silkscreen in high school so we could have cool t-shirts to wear.

2. What is your earliest/favorite crafting memory?

Maggie: My parents have a friend who owned a ceramics store that held classes every weekend. I was the only 7 year old hanging out with retirees, picking out cool molds to paint & stain every Saturday afternoon!

David: I guess making toys out of scrap wood and tooling little leather scraps of stuff.

3. Why do you make things?

Maggie: Once we got out of grad school, we never had enough time to spend in our studio since we had to find day jobs. David was miserable working as a field manager at a high end apartment company and being exhausted at the end of the day. We gave ourselves a goal to apply to Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn in 2006 and came up with a bunch of images to screen on tees and tote bags. We also came up with a line of acrylic jewelry to see how it would do. We were stunned at the response we got at RCF!

4. What sort of things do you make?

Maggie: We design and silkscreen tees, totebags and make jewelry.

David: We are working on ideas for a higher end line of jewelry and looking at Modernist jewelry from the 1950’s and conceptual European jewelry inspiration.

5. Any success stories you’d care to share?

Maggie: If you have an idea, just go for it and make it because you have nothing to lose by trying. You will never be 100% ready. When we started in 2006, we had stuff to sell but hated the fact that we didn’t have a website, a proper logo designed for our name, a cool looking business card, a well designed table display, or name labels/hang tags for our tees and our totebags. Had we waited till we perfected all of it before putting ourselves out there, it probably would have taken another year! You gotta just go with the flow and everything will eventually fall into place!

David: We have been so busy since we started that I was finally able to quit my day job three months after we started our business. Now I get to focus on our business and although I work twice as hard, I love that we don’t have to answer to anyone but to ourselves and each other!

6. Inspirations?

Maggie: History, NYC, antiques, fonts, contemporary art, travel and lots of TV.
David: Post modernism, conceptual art, vikings, and things of an evil nature in a fun way.

7. Craft supplies you can’t live without?

Maggie: masking tape, my drill press and jewelers pliers.
David: black electrical tape, masking tape and black ink.

8. Describe your work area (photos please!)

Maggie & David: Chaos!

9. Family?

Maggie: David & I finally found time to get hitched in October 2006 after 11 years of putting it off. In fact, we did our first Crafty Bastards event in 2006, drove back to NYC the next day to catch a plane to San Antonio, Texas & were married the following weekend! Our families are all in Texas waiting for us to get NYC out of our system, but we are not ready to head back home just yet!

Pets?
Maggie: We have two cats, John Wayne & Tiggy, plus a feral cat colony that live in our backyard – we practice TNR (trap, neuter & release) so that the cats that show up in our backyard do not continue to multiply.

Plants?
Maggie: I dream of a garden in my backyard, but I don’t have a water hose. I have flowers outside in pots and try to remember to water them.

10. Favorite color or pattern?

Maggie: Green and turquoise. I love plaid, stripes and houndstooth patterns.
David: Stripes.

11. Have you been a Crafty Bastard before?

Maggie: Yes – we participated for the first time in 2006 & at the past 2007 event. If you happened to have seen us at Crafty Bastards, we used to call ourselves BANG but decided to change our name at the end of 2007 to LOYALTY & BLOOD. We figured L&B would be a strong enough to not be confused with anyone else out there since it was happening when we called ourselves BANG. As for Crafty Bastards, it is so extremely well organized – the Crafty Crew/volunteers are always so helpful and nice! It is one of our favorite shows to participate in!

12. Tell us about other crafters you love and your favorite handmade purchases.

Jezebel Stationery – Leigh’s awesome silhouette stationery! She has extended her imagery to cool tees and tote bags!
www.ilovejezebel.com
Maryink – We had the pleasure of finally meeting Mary & Chris last year at Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn – they make such beautiful tees! We were so psyched that they did Crafty Bastards for the first time in 2007! www.maryink.com
Sheriff Peanut – cool bibs and baby tees run by one of our favorite craft show buds! All of our friends are having babies & we love to give Sheriff Peanut gear as gifts. Norah was the one who told us about Crafty Bastards when we were new to the indie craft scene!
www.sheriffpeanut.com
Something’s Hiding In Here – Shauna & Stephen’s wood rings and their wood blocks are amazing! We love their cast plaster objects too! We dream of being as organized as they are!

13. Would you like to include a HOW-TO for the blog?

David: I can do a how-to about how to make a vegan cheesy sauce!

14. What is one thing everyone should know how to do themselves?

Maggie: How to iron clothes
David: Change a tire