Craft Work

There is a great article by Rob Walker in today’s New York Times magazine about the Indie craft movement. The article mostly centers around the awesome Heidi Kenney of My Paper Crane, but talks generally about things handmade and those (primarily women, many of whom are stay-at-home moms) who make and sell handmade goods from their homes. If you missed the article, here are some of the good parts.

Leah Kramer, of Crafster fame, talks about how “this is an ‘art movement’ that is dominated by female artist-entrepreneurs.” She says, “We’re talking thousands of women. It’s really impressive.”

The article goes on to say, “…the D.I.Y. craft movement offers a new way to resolve an old tension between traditional domestic skills and participation in the (economic and creative) marketplace: by combining them.”

Reading this article put me in a great mood this morning (which is what I needed because I do wake up at 6:15 a.m., even on Sundays). It made me feel so lucky to be a stay-at-home mom right now, at a time when there are hundreds (more?) of crafty blogs to read and a thriving online artist community to be part of. Before I became a mom I spent years and years learning to become a great teacher. I loved teaching and I loved having a career outside the home, but at the end of the day I hardly had enough creative energy left to craft (although I always managed to do a little something). The transition to staying at home with children has not always been easy, but nap time every day gave me a time when I had to be home and I had to be quiet – a perfect time to craft. I feel so blessed to have this time to reinvent myself, to be an artist at least for an hour or two a day.

And just so this post ends with something nice to look at, these two girls are off to Plush You. Here they are posing for their portraits for the press kit.