Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Edge of a Wooden Sword

Question for you. If you are Serious Artist, would you have an etsy shop selling handspun yarn? If you were Tackling the Big Issues of the Day, would you be knitting and selling hats in various shops? If you were On the Cutting Edge, would you teach yoga and spend inordinate amounts of time chopping vegetables and cleaning bathrooms at your local Zen centre? Would even wondering about that call into question your Serious Artist Street Cred?

Ah, f*ck it. Let'em riot.


So, I made a contact at the Sunnyside Gardens Craft Fair a couple of weekends ago. I only sold two skeins of yarn that day. Despite being part of New York City, Queens has another standard of what constitutes a good price range for handmade goods and my yarn and hats are not in it. In any case, I met a woman with a boutique, Calico Juno, on City Island who loved my hats. We have worked out a deal and I am sending her a box of hats today. Although they have been getting lots of hits on etsy, my hats have always been a bit of a hard sell there, so it is good to have another option in New York for them. I also sell them through Devon House, the Craft Council shop in St. John's (although at the moment, I don't think they have any).



I also have uploaded four skeins of yarn that I made for the craft fair. You may remember this one:


It turned out to be 600 yds! I fear it is almost too big. I have priced it rather high but considering the hours, nay, days I spent working on it....pennies, my dears, pennies.


This is merino, 240 yds. I called it Psychedelic for obvious reasons. I deliberately made it not rainbow sequenced. I think it would knit up into something pretty wonderful, if you have the cajones to wear it.




These two are both superwash merino spun from some Lorna's Lace fleece that I got from a destash sale at Taos Sunflower.

And now back to my Cutting Edge life...

5 comments:

  1. you can do whatever you want...

    ReplyDelete
  2. I know, I know, I know, but....sometimes....

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think one of the wonderful things about NYC is great museums and other civic ammenities that are free, or nearly so.

    But--i think we forget, once, art was only for the rich--be they kings or popes!

    To many think art should be cheap.
    One of kind is worth no more than milled by the mile.

    I can't afford your yarn (wish i could, but can't!) but I fully agree that you are still UNDER PRICING IT!

    I love that i have access for pennies to some of the great works of art and science--but I KNOW its worth a lot more than i pay for it (just to see it)

    Artist have to eat, and buy clothes, and live somewhere. We all can be creative (i am creative!) but we need to value artistry--and we show how we value it the same we show how we value anything.. with cold hard cash!

    good for you. Its not wrong to want to be compensated for your work.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Who are they anyway??

    ReplyDelete
  5. we all have selling/market days like that,

    ReplyDelete