The Renegade Interview
February 18th, 2008 | by Paul |
(Source: Renegade Handmade Flickr account. Used with permission.)
In the sea of hip known as Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood, there is a modest consignment shop where a person can buy plush bacon and eggs, buttons with owls on them and posters and shirts made by artists and crafters from Korea to, well, Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood.
The store, which opened in July, is Renegade Handmade. It itself is an offshoot of the Renegade Craft Fair, a quarterly gathering of hippies, punks, paper-makers, seamstresses, musicians, suburban retirees and other people who want to make and buy handmade goods rather than go corporate. The most recent fair in Chicago (they also run in New York and San Francisco) had an estimated 60,000 attendees.
I sat down with Sue Daly, the 29-year-old founder and organizer of the fair and owner of the store. In the following audio interview, we discuss the politics, culture and style of buying handmade, plus chain stores trying to cash in on the trend and how a hobby became, to her and others, a growing subculture.
Nine Questions for Sue Daly:
(Source: Renegade Handmade Flickr account. Used with permission.)
To read a transcript of the video, click below.
SD: Sue Daly, owner and operator of Renegade Craft Fair and Renegade Handmade.
PD: Now, could you tell me how the craft fair started?
SD: Yeah, back in 2003, I was looking into joining some of the local art fairs and didn’t really find anything that allowed handmade items to be sold, so along with a childhood friend of mine we decided to kind of look into throwing our own fair so it wasn’t that difficult and that’s how the whole thing started.
PD: OK. And it’s gone on to New York and San Francisco, I understand?
SD: Yeah, we’ve been in Brooklyn for – this will be our fourth annual event there and then this will be our first year in San Francisco.
PD: So how does the organization work there? Who runs the show on the coasts?
SD: I organize the event in Brooklyn, Chicago and San Francisco and I basically just can do it all online, like our applications are all online through our Web sites, and I just have like a working relationship with all the venues from coast to coast at this point. So it’s just really easy for me to do it at this point.
PD: Now, you were talking about the DIY [Do It Yourself] crafting movement and you likened it to sort of indie rock. Could you expand on that?
SD: I think like the whole DIY crafting movement grew out of the indie rock and kind of zine [homemade magazine] subcultures of the 90s. It kind of came a little bit later, but I think it’s going to be, you know, maybe just as big as the indie rock movement or – it’s already surpassed just like the zine movement so basically it’s kind of like the same people who are making this stuff, you know. So it’s related.
PD: Do you think it will be hard to get people to wrap a movement around made items as opposed to, like with indie rock –
SD: Music,
PD: Going to concerts,
SD: Yeah. I don’t think it has like as much of a mass appeal as like music does, but everybody has to like use things, wear things and, you know, people want to do it in style. And like I was saying, [clothing stores] Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie have picked up on, you know, some of these items and sell it to the mainstream in their stores. They just don’t really, you know, think of it as like a cultural thing as much as like we do, you know, when we take it seriously.
PD: So, those stores you mentioned, I mean how – are they selling individual items, are they replicating –
SD: Both.
PD: Items that were originally,
SD: Yeah, so they like buy items from some artists that, you know, we even carry or know. And then, you know, I’ve heard of like horror stories where they’ll have bought their item and then not mention like who it’s made by or something and they just kind of take it on as their own. [It’s] just kind of like it’s anonymous, like all that stuff that they were selling made in like India, you know, and still do sell. And then they even like take some designs, you know, and make them their own like T-shirts or cards and stuff like that.
PD: Now how much of the movement or how much of – I guess more particularly the people who show at your fairs and have consignments here at the shop – how much of that would you say is political and how is it political?
SD: I would say it’s like 10 percent or so. And I think it’s more – I mean, some people are focusing on politics, so like the war or President Bush and stuff like that and then some people focus a lot more on like recycling and being green and I can’t really think of any other ways it comes out politically. But yeah, I think people are making things for all different reasons. So the political or recycling components, maybe like 10 percent of the entire subculture?
PD: OK. Now what to you makes it a subculture or what does the word subculture mean?
SD: I think when you have several thousand people that are making things or talking about things or you know kind of make this a hobby of theirs in some respect, then it’s a subculture. It’s like a little movement.
PD: Is there a goal or is there an end goal?
SD: I think the end goal is just to make and have like really unique things. I just think people are kind of sick of buying stuff at the Gap or Old Navy and, you know, all those big chain stores and they want something that makes them laugh or you know is kind of like subjective to them somehow, like they just think it’s really unique or cute. If you have to have something or wear something it may as well be something unique as opposed to just like something mass produced, you know?