Friggin' Sweet Craft Fair in Chicago

This craft fair I attended in Chicago was really AMAZING! I have been to SOFA before when I attended high school but this craft fair is so awesome. If you didnt go, you are MISSING out big time. The fair gave me a lot of inspirations and constant reminder to be simple. I do try to be simple with my works but I always think too hard and start to get over frustrated with myself.

Few things I learned from the fair...the most important thing for myself is to BE SIMPLE. There were so many beautiful objects for sale that are so simple and can be produced several times in variety ways. It made me feel so dumb for thinking too hard.

Other thing I learned from this fair is the most common theme throughout the art world today is organic, recycleable materials, "go green". I think that is interesting for me because I always want to be able to reuse the materials I find in my house to create something else with it than just to discharge.

I really like how simple and the set ups are for their display. It made me feel like our object sale from last year was ugly and boring. It did not feel very appealing to me when I was trying to convince the potiential buyers. With the display at the fair, they were able to capture my attention and make me want to go closer to see what is going on there. One display used simple poreclain vases and bowls and made their jewelry really elegant even if they are not that elegant but I think display do make a strong impression with your work. Frankie and Stacey is right that we need to improve our display for our sale this year.

My personal experience, I have been struggling to come up with ideas of using my own photographs and combing them with metals like jewelry. At the fair, I saw several simple ideas that I didnt think of myself. I bought 3 necklaces with photo attached to them (I will attach the photo of the necklace later when I have time, and bring it to class on monday sept 14). It made me feel like eureka! and at the same time, DUH!

The last thing I found interesting is the materials they used. They used felt, paper, fabric, vinyl, plastic, rubber, brass, silver, and many more. Some of them even made soaps! One artist made soaps that have theme inside like some kind of landscape or toys inside the soap. I thought that was interesting variety of the materials being used. In metals studio at UWM, I am constantly feeling that I am being forced to use specific materials all of time. I feel like that I should be able to learn how to use other materials but havent had the chance to do so. I wonder if I can try to step outside the box this year and create some kind of sweet work with other materials than just fine metals.