Editorial
Front Page - Friday, December 10, 2010
Event enlightens others on Indie craft movement
Erica Tuggle
Jon and Elizabeth Pemberton of “Final Approach,” turn vintage hard-shell luggage into portable works of art with their spray paint and decoupage designs. The pair started their handmade crafting venture, three years ago and have traveled to many Indie Craft Shows like Chattanooga’s “Chatty Crafty.” Examples of their work can be found at www.finalapproach.com.
- Erica Tuggle
The Industrial Revolution provided a great benefit to the country in the mass production of items, yet lost in this shuffle over the years were the unique and one-of-a-kind items that handmade crafting produced. With the Indie craft movement taking the country by storm, Chattanooga had its own taste of the phenomena with the first annual Chatty Crafty event.
Chatty Crafty is Chattanooga’s first indie craft show featuring items like pieced together fabric dolls, handmade children’s clothes and beautiful hand shaped jewelry items. The event springs from the Indie craft “Do it yourself (DIY)” movement that has swept over the country, establishing sites like ETSY, where practically anyone can sell any of their handmade products.
With the support for locally made items and buying straight from the source strong in the gift–giving season, the 70 vendors from 14 states gathered at Renaissance Park on a very chilly November weekend to sell and give a personal touch to the items they had created.
Chatty Crafty began as an idea between David Smotherman, owner of Winder Binder Gallery of Folk Art, and seasoned art show organizer, Lynda Buckels-Stephens. They enlisted the help of Kellie McMurry to put the event together and bring in the array of vendors.
Buckels says she cannot remember a time that she wasn’t making something with her hands, and has been selling her items most of her life as well. She says, in fifth grade she was asked to stop bringing these items to school because the class was interrupted so often by students from other classes knocking on the door with a quarter in hand to buy one of her fake fur worms with googly eyes.
“It is funny to look back now and see that this was always my passion – making things, making someone happy with the items I craft,” she says.
“I love the process of creating and then connecting with the public and even knowing who is going home with some[thing] I have made.”
Having been a participant in indie craft shows all over the southeast and beyond, and seeing an abundance of craft shows in the area with nothing like this, Buckels says she knew this city was ready for Chatty Crafty and wanted to bring this to her hometown.
Indie craft boasts a community of crafters combining traditional crafting with sometimes unconventional methods. Typically, media incorporates recycled items, vintage objects and imagery, punk memorabilia, paint, fabric, thread and basically anything else that might inspire the DIYer.
“Indie is really a handmade revolution and it is sweeping our country in a time that folks want to know who they are buying from, shake the hand of the person that made their scarf, their skirt, the prized necklace that they love so much. It is a very personal way of purchasing items for yourself or your home,” she says.
One of the vendors a purchaser could talk one-on-one with was the husband and wife team Jon and Elizabeth Pemberton of “Final Approach.”
The Pembertons use clever crafting skills to take vintage hard-shell suitcases and “make them awesome” with graffiti style political propaganda, pop culture images.
This results in a portable work of art featuring designs like the Chairman Mao case, a Snoop Dog case and other designs in vivid neon spray-paint colors.
The Pembertons live in Knoxville, and say they chose this event because they like to do shows closer to home and love Chattanooga.
“It just seemed like an awesome opportunity. When we saw the list of vendors here and saw the big names as far as crafting goes, we were really impressed.”
Jon said at the time they began, they didn’t know about the crafting scene at all, and just made their items for relatives at Christmas until someone told them about a show in Ashville, N.C., and after that, business exploded.
Three years later, the team is booked until after Christmas, although if you send them an email at www.finalapproach.etsy.com, they will see what they can work out for you.
Another one of the many neat vendor tents featured an item called WonkyDolls, “plushy” stuffed dolls made from pieced together vintage patterns in an item none of your friends can imitate.
“Posterpocalyptic, images, sculpted art and painted art are also created by Joe and Kelly Shull of “jellykoe.” Another husband and wife team, they live in Columbia, S.C., making these dolls and designing new characters to add to their group.
Joe is mainly the designer, and uses his ample imagination to bring out colorful art in many forms. This includes putting his paintings on antique books, wood and basically anything. More examples of their work can be found at www.jellykoe.com.
Chatty Crafty also offered items to entice more than just your eyes at the DaisyCakes Soap booth, where Jean-Marie Buxton from Athens, Ga., was happy to explain why handmade soap is the way to go.
Buxton has been making 40 different kinds of olive oil soap for 12 years, starting in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, La., and selling for five years on www.Daisycakesshop.com.
She says handmade soap is different from store soap because it doesn’t have the detergents and foaming agents in it, and is made from plant oil instead of animal products.
“When you make soap naturally, it retains a glycerin that helps draw moisture to your skin so it doesn’t dry you out,” she says.
“Commercially made soap extracts the glycerin and they sell that elsewhere. This is the whole complete package instead of extracted glycerin and added foaming agents.”
Buckels says everyone was really pleased with the event, and are still walking on air from the vendor contributions and positive public response to the event.
She says Chatty Crafty is already enjoying the planning they are doing for next year’s event.
She says, “Look out Chattanooga, the Handmade Revolution is here, and Chatty Crafty is bringing it to you up close and personal!”
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